It’s one thing for a lawyer’s work to be of less than stellar quality.  Not every lawyer is good at what he does.  Some lawyers, who have the ability, just don’t put in the effort on every case.  This isn’t acceptable, but it happens.  With amazing regularity.  But it’s another thing altogether for a lawyer to miss a critical filing deadline.  This is utterly inexcusable.

This story in the Houston Chronicle is sickening.

Three men on Texas’ death row — and six others already executed — lost their federal appeals because attorneys failed to meet life-or-death deadlines, essentially waiving the last constitutionally required review before a death sentence is carried out.

It seems as if this must be a joke, an impossibility.  It doesn’t seem possible that any lawyer, no matter how mediocre or lax, could possibly do something this shockingly stupid and irresponsible.  But it’s not a joke.  It’s just a disgrace.

Not only does it happen, but one lawyer, Jerome Godinich, has done it twice. 

In both cases, the lawyer waited until after business hours on the last day an appeal could be filed and then blamed a malfunctioning filing machine for his tardiness, according to a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion issued last week. The court chastised the attorney for using the same excuse twice.

There is so much wrong with this “excuse” that it’s difficult to know where to begin.  First, the excuse of a “malfunctioning filing machine (what’s a filing machine?)” is utter nonsense.  While I don’t believe the copying machine was down, even if true it doesn’t matter. File electronically.  Second. what competent lawyer waits until the absolute last second to do his work when a person’s life is on the line?  Well, Jerome Godinich, obviously.  

And finally, why would court assign Jerome Godinich to represent a death row inmate after he’s already blown a deadline?  One that expects an execution and isn’t terribly interested in anything stopping the party.

So we’re clear, I believe that the one year limit on 2255 motions is total crap, the elevation of procedure over substance.  In my United States, potentially innocent people are not put to death because a filing deadline is missed.  Ever.  Filing deadlines are for grocery clerks; they are not more important than substance, and the judicial economy derived from a firm deadline never trumps due process.  So there.

But lawyers are well aware of this deadline, no matter how much we despise it.  It is inconceivable that any lawyer could miss it, but it is similarly inconceivable that any competent lawyer would wait until the last minute to get his work done anyway.  In death penalty cases, it is literally a life and death failure.  But even in non-death cases, there is no excuse whatsoever.  People’s lives depend on the lawyer doing his job, doing it effectively, doing it timely.  It’s not like filing deadlines come as a surprise.

And what of the defendants, who think that there’s a guy out there representing him and giving him his last chance?

Quintin Phillippe Jones, another Texas death row inmate who also recently lost his federal appeal because of an attorney’s tardiness, said he did everything he could to alert the federal courts to report problems months before his Fort Worth attorney blew his federal deadline. Jones wrote letters to the judge, filed two motions with the help of other prisoners in an attempt to get another attorney, and even sent two separate complaints to the state bar. Nothing worked.

“I heard he didn’t file (on time) through another lawyer,” Jones said. “I’m the one who pays for his mistake. It cost a lot, and I’m paying for it.”

So the lawyer screws up and goes home for dinner.  The defendant is executed.  This is just disgusting.