Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 4 of 4
Full-Text Articles in Law
When Mental Health Meets “The One-Armed Man” Defense: How Courts Should Deal With Mccoy Defendants, Farid Seyyedi
When Mental Health Meets “The One-Armed Man” Defense: How Courts Should Deal With Mccoy Defendants, Farid Seyyedi
St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics
The Supreme Court’s opinion in McCoy v. Louisiana held that a defendant has a constitutional right to insist their attorney not concede guilt as to any element of an offense, even if doing so is the only reasonable trial strategy to give the defendant a chance at life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. Under McCoy’s holding, a defendant can insist on maintaining their innocence—even in the face of overwhelming evidence—and force their attorney to pursue a defense that will land them on death row. The Supreme Court’s holding makes clear that a strategic concession of guilt at trial—over …
Autonomy Isn't Everything: Some Cautionary Notes On Mccoy V. Louisiana, W. Bradley Wendel
Autonomy Isn't Everything: Some Cautionary Notes On Mccoy V. Louisiana, W. Bradley Wendel
St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics
The Supreme Court’s May 2018 decision in McCoy v. Louisiana has been hailed as a decisive statement of the priority of the value of a criminal defendant’s autonomy over the fairness and reliability interests that also inform both the Sixth Amendment and the ethical obligations of defense counsel. It also appears to be a victory for the vision of client-centered representation and the humanistic value of the inherent dignity of the accused. However, the decision is susceptible to being read too broadly in ways that harm certain categories of defendants. This paper offers a couple of cautionary notes, in response …
Disqualifying Defense Counsel: The Curse Of The Sixth Amendment, Keith Swisher
Disqualifying Defense Counsel: The Curse Of The Sixth Amendment, Keith Swisher
St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics
Lawyer disqualification—the process of ejecting a conflicted lawyer, firm, or agency from a case—is fairly routine and well-mapped in civil litigation. In criminal cases, however, there is an added ingredient: the Sixth Amendment. Gideon, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, effectively added this ingredient to disqualification analysis involving indigent state defendants although it already existed in essence for both federal defendants and defendants with the wherewithal to retain counsel. Once a defendant is entitled to counsel, the many questions that follow include whether and to what extent conflicts of interest—or other misconduct—render that counsel constitutionally ineffective. Most cases and commentary …
Reinventing The Wheel: Constructing Ethical Approaches To State Indigent Legal Defense Systems., Bill Piatt
Reinventing The Wheel: Constructing Ethical Approaches To State Indigent Legal Defense Systems., Bill Piatt
St. Mary's Journal on Legal Malpractice & Ethics
Indigent defense remains in a state of crisis. Almost fifty years after the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Gideon v. Wainwright, lack of funding, favoritism, inefficiency, and poorly-designed indigent[1]defense plans plague the system, which can best be characterized as being in a state of disrepair. As a result, accused indigent individuals, a vulnerable population, suffer from a lack of adequate representation. This Article reviews the history and implementation of various indigent-defense systems and examines the ethical issues arising from their operation. It offers a guide to reconstructing a model system, including the suggestion that attorneys first recommit the profession to …