"The state's highest criminal court, criticized for tolerating shoddy appeals filed on behalf of death row inmates, adopted new rules Monday to begin weeding out attorneys whose work falls below professional standards," reports the Austin Statesman today. "When the rules take effect Friday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will be able to sanction lawyers who submit sloppy, lazy, inferior death-row appeals — a significant shift for the nine-member court."
Via the StandDown blog. The Court's new rules are linked here.
Thanks for the note on my anniversary. I read this in the National news and thought the same thing... It's about damn time.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I missed something though. The way I read the national story was that the new sanctions only apply to lazy appeals attorneys. Is that the case?
Are there similar sanctions enforced for attorneys who fall asleep or come to court drunk during the initial trial or is that another loophole that needs to be plugged?
Unfortunately I still know little about the Texas justice system (although reading your blog helps quite a bit), so forgive me if my question sounds uninformed...