Twenty clients of Texas defense attor­ney Jerry Guerinot have been sen­tenced to death – a num­ber high­er than the death row pop­u­la­tions of 18 death penal­ty states around the coun­try. Guerinot also rep­re­sent­ed Linda Carty, a British nation­al who was fac­ing the death penal­ty for arrang­ing a mur­der. She asserts she was wrong­ly con­vict­ed and poor­ly rep­re­sent­ed by Guerinot. He failed to vis­it her for three months after being appoint­ed her coun­sel, did not call key wit­ness­es who would have tes­ti­fied on her behalf, and neglect­ed to con­tact the British Consulate for legal assis­tance. Regarding tri­al prepa­ra­tion, Carty stat­ed, ​“I met this guy for less than 15 min­utes. Once.” David Dow, lit­i­ga­tion direc­tor of the Texas Defender Service, which rep­re­sents some of Guerinot’s for­mer clients who are now on death row, said the large num­ber of death sen­tences reflect a fail­ure to con­duct sim­ple inves­ti­ga­tions. ​“He does­n’t even pick the low-hang­ing fruit which is hit­ting him in the head as he’s walk­ing under the tree.” Steve Humphries, a film­mak­er inves­ti­gat­ing Carty’s case, said in a brief urg­ing the Supreme Court to hear Carty’s case, ​“It is no exag­ger­a­tion to sug­gest that Mr. Guerinot has per­haps the worst record of any cap­i­tal lawyer in the United States.”

Mr. Guerinot also failed to inter­view Charlie Mathis, a Drug Enforcement Agency offi­cer for whom Linda Carty had worked as an infor­mant. ​“Had Linda’s coun­sel approached me, I would have been will­ing to tes­ti­fy on Linda’s behalf,” Mathis said in an affi­davit. ​“I would have tes­ti­fied that she is not a vio­lent per­son, let alone a cold-blooded murderer.”

(A. Liptak, ​“A Lawyer Known Best for Losing Capital Cases,” New York Times, May 17, 2010). See also Representation and Foreign Nationals.

Citation Guide