Archive for May 10, 2007
Things you should tell your client
May 10th
In continuation of a series of posts about client representation in criminal cases, I have this to add:
Tell your clients about any post-conviction proceedings. Tell your client of his/her right to appeal (if there is such a right), right to seek sentence review (if such a right exists) and, equally important, that he/she has one year from when the conviction becomes final [please explain what that means] to seek redress in Federal court via a habeas corpus petition. Also explain that state collateral proceedings will toll that one year statute of limitations period.
The reason for this is that clients don’t know jack. More often than not, if a client receives a lengthy sentence, he will wait a while after the appeal is decided before pursuing state habeas options. That “a while” is usually more than a year. Which means that even if there is a successful habeas claim, it can never be presented in Federal Court.
The other day I was assigned a client who, luckily, has two months left out of that one year period. He didn’t do that intentionally. He had no idea. I barely noticed it. We got lucky. Next time, maybe not.
The more you know…
Technorati Tags: federal habeas corpus, criminal law
mixed bag for New Jersey
May 10th
Two New Jersey legislative proposals in the past few days caught my eye: one good, one bad. In the plus column is New Jersey’s bill to abolish the death penalty, which was voted out of the Judiciary Committee (8-2) and now heads to the full Assembly for a vote.
If also passed by the Assembly and signed by Gov. Jon Corzine, who opposes capital punishment, it would make New Jersey the first state to legislatively abolish capital punishment since 1976. That was the year the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the first revised death penalty laws after striking them down nationwide four years earlier.
“That would be historic,†said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C.
The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), said passing it would “give New Jersey an opportunity to lead the nation by recognizing the death penalty has no reason to exist.â€
“The death penalty cannot be fixed,†Lesniak said. “The time has come to abolish it.â€
Full audio of the judiciary committee hearing is available here. Click on listen and then skip to around 51 minutes in.
HT: CDW
On the other hand, Lyndhurst, NJ has this asinine proposal:
Lyndhurst is gathering feedback on a proposal to require background and fingerprint checks of all ice-cream truck and other food-on-wheels vendors as a way to protect children. ‘Most of the people who come to an ice-cream truck are kids,’ says Mayor Richard DiLascio. ‘A parent might not always be around.’ Volunteer coaches and teachers must already submit to such checks.
This is nothing but fear mongering. As Mark Bennett rightly points out, only 7% of all reported sexual assaults against minors are carried out by strangers. He also has an interesting proposal to reduce child sexual assault.
Yes, that is a “Jersey Ice Cream ” ice cream truck in the picture.
Browser poll
May 10th
In the past I’ve had some trouble with making the site appear the same for users of IE and Firefox, so here’s a little poll to figure out which browser you guys use the most.
[poll=7]
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