Representation Problems Persist Even as Texas Executions Rise

Justin Fuller was exe­cut­ed in Texas on August 24. He was the 19^th per­son exe­cut­ed this year, equal­ing the total num­ber of peo­ple exe­cut­ed last year in the state. The San Antonio Express-News report­ed that Fuller had been rep­re­sent­ed by an attor­ney who ​“filed an appeal with inco­her­ent rep­e­ti­tions, ram­bling argu­ments and lan­guage clear­ly lift­ed from one of his pre­vi­ous cas­es, so that at one point it described the wrong crime.“

The appeal filed for Fuller copied word­ing that the attor­ney had filed for a dif­fer­ent client and ref­er­ences blood on a gun used in a case sev­en years ear­li­er. The brief con­tains irrel­e­van­cies, rep­e­ti­tions, and numer­ous typo­graph­i­cal errors. Even the assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney was dis­turbed by the qual­i­ty of the legal brief.

After Fuller lost his appeal, his rep­re­sen­ta­tion was tak­en over by anoth­er attor­ney, but the orig­i­nal attor­ney con­tin­ued to rep­re­sent death row inmates. In one sub­se­quent brief, the lawyer ​“spends 13 pages nam­ing seem­ing­ly every doc­u­ment filed in the case. It then makes five claims that are almost word-for-word iden­ti­cal to claims in Fuller’s case. The next 24 pages seem copied from his clien­t’s let­ters, so that they sel­dom if ever cite case law and occa­sion­al­ly lapse into first-per­son nar­ra­tive.” The lawyer is still on the list of ​“com­pe­tent coun­sel” for Texas death penal­ty appel­late work.
(Maro Robbins, San Antonio Express-News, Aug. 24, 2006). See Representation.