Decision of the day, Texas edition
Posted on
January 04, 2008 by
Gideon
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A very faithful reader sent along this humorous decision from the Court of Appeals of Texas, Seventh District. It’s not from today, or yesterday, but a day almost 4 years ago. Yet, it is funny enough for me to pass along.
Here’s the excerpt from Lexis:
Assistance of court-appointed counsel was not rendered ineffective by the fact that counsel was on the indicting grand jury. Apart from bald assertion of conflict, defendant failed to show how attorney could have represented him more effectively.
As they say, only in Texas. At least it wasn’t a death case.
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Other than the optics, what’s the issue here?
If you have time…how are grand jurors chosen?
Optics?
Cat:
A grand jury is a group of people that are selected and sworn in by a court, just like jurors that are chosen to serve on a trial jury. In fact, the grand jurors are usually chosen from the same pool of people that provide trial jurors: A judge selects and swears in a grand jury, just like judges select and swear in trial juries.
From Here
SPO,
The court appointed counsel for the defendant had already served on the grand jury to indict the defendant. Since the atty. was already part of the group that indicted the defendant, it would seem his advocacy for his client would be less than stellar.
Edin, I think you’re conflating two issues–one the actual representation given and the alleged conflict. I agree that the optics here (i.e., how this looks) aren’t great, but so what. Just because someone believes that there is probable cause for a trial doesn’t mean that they cannot zealously represent a guy. Hey, how many defense attorneys zealously fight for a guy they know is guilty? Happens all the time–so why is a vote on a grand jury panel any worse than that?