The Austin American-Statesman con­duct­ed an exten­sive study of the qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion that death row inmates receive in Texas. The study concluded that:

Sheltered by an indif­fer­ent Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, lawyers appoint­ed
to han­dle appeals for death row inmates rou­tine­ly bun­gle the job, sub­mit­ting
work that falls far below pro­fes­sion­al stan­dards, fre­quent­ly at tax­pay­er expense.

Some appeals are incom­plete, incom­pre­hen­si­ble or improp­er­ly argued. Others are
dupli­cat­ed, poor­ly, from pre­vi­ous appeals.

Whatever their con­di­tion, these pieces of shod­dy legal work have been
tol­er­at­ed by the state’s high­est crim­i­nal court for 11 years — dur­ing which
273 men and women were exe­cut­ed — despite a state law requir­ing the court to
ensure that the con­demned receive com­pe­tent legal help.

The court has failed in that oblig­a­tion, allow­ing lawyers to sub­mit slop­py,
lazy and infe­ri­or work with lit­tle over­sight and no fear of con­se­quences,
accord­ing to an Austin American-Statesman exam­i­na­tion that rais­es trou­bling
ques­tions about the qual­i­ty of death penal­ty jus­tice in the nation’s lead­ing
execution state.

One of the appeals cit­ed in the study was writ­ten by an appoint­ed attor­ney, Toby Wilkinson, who clear­ly just copied por­tions of a let­ter writ­ten by his client on death row. The paper quot­ed the brief to the court, and noted:

“I’m just about out of car­bon paper,” reads the bizarre appeal, which earned
Wilkinson $22,270 from the Texas trea­sury. ​“As soon as I get some more typ­ing
sup­plies I have about thir­ty more errors I want … in my appeal.”

The paper described the response of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to the dis­mal qual­i­ty of rep­re­sen­ta­tion in many cas­es as ​“fee­ble.”

(Chuck Lindell, Austin American-Statesman, Oct. 29, 2006; two-part series, ​“Writs Gone Wrong,” Oct. 29 – 30, 2006). See Representation and Arbitrariness.

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