Raphael Holiday (pic­tured) is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in Texas on November 18 after appeals lawyers who were appoint­ed to his case uni­lat­er­al­ly decid­ed not to seek clemen­cy or pur­sue addi­tion­al appeals and then opposed Holiday’s efforts to replace them with lawyers who would. James ​“Wes” Volberding and Seth Kretzer say that they were unable to find new evi­dence on which to base any appeal and that seek­ing clemen­cy from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would give Holiday ​“false hope” and is point­less. When anoth­er attor­ney, Gretchen Sween, stepped in to help Holiday find new coun­sel, his cur­rent attor­neys opposed her efforts to replace them. They then filed a clemen­cy peti­tion pre­pared so hasti­ly that it twice gives the wrong exe­cu­tion date. The lawyers say they were exer­cis­ing pro­fes­sion­al dis­cre­tion in aban­don­ing efforts to spare Holiday’s life, but death penal­ty experts assert that coun­sel are required to pur­sue all avail­able avenues to stop a clien­t’s exe­cu­tion. Stephen Bright, a Yale law pro­fes­sor and pres­i­dent of the Southern Center for Human Rights, said that in decades of prac­tice in cap­i­tal cas­es he has nev­er seen appoint­ed lawyers fight so vig­or­ous­ly to pre­vent their client from retain­ing new coun­sel. ​“This seems uncon­scionable,” he said. ​“Lawyers are often in a posi­tion of rep­re­sent­ing peo­ple for whom the legal issues are not par­tic­u­lar­ly strong, but nev­er­the­less they have a duty to make every legal argu­ment they can.” Jim Marcus, a University of Texas law pro­fes­sor and vet­er­an death penal­ty lawyer, agreed that Holiday’s attor­neys are legal­ly required to con­tin­ue pur­su­ing appeals: ​“There’s a dif­fer­ence between say­ing that’s not a viable strat­e­gy or viable claim and aban­don­ing an entire pro­ceed­ing alto­geth­er. The lat­ter is not really permissible .…”

(B. Grissom, ​“Condemned man’s lawyers stop help­ing, cite ​‘false hope’,” Dallas Morning News, November 16, 2015.) See Arbitrariness and Representation. [UPDATE: Texas exe­cut­ed Raphael Holiday on November 18, 2015.] 

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