Imagine how fortunate a death row inmate must feel when he learns that his cause will be taken up by the best and brightest lawyers at one of the most prestigious big law firms in the nation, Sullivan & Cromwell. Hallelujah! After all, these are the whizkids, the ones with all the resources. Their staff has staff. A thousand laboring oars, all to save one man from execution.
Cory Maples must have thought he hit the lottery when he found out. From Above the Law :
More than a decade ago, Cory Maples of Alabama murdered two people. After an evening of heavy drinking, playing pool, and riding around in a friend’s car, Maples killed two friends, shooting them execution-style.
According to court documents, he signed a confession, “stating that he: (1) shot both victims around midnight; (2) had drunk six or seven beers by about 8 p.m., but ‘didn’t feel very drunk’; and (3) did not know why he decided to kill the two men. Faced with this confession, Maples’s trial attorneys argued that Maples was guilty of murder, but not capital murder.”
A jury found Maples guilty and sentenced him to death.
Maples appealed his capital murder conviction with the help of attorneys at Sullivan & Cromwell.
So they filed a Rule 32 petition alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. And they lost. Stercus accidit. But what happened after that, well, doesn’t just happen.
Basically, Sullivan & Cromwell forgot to file a notice of appeal for a death row inmate, causing him to procedurally default all his ineffective-assistance claims. Oops!
It seems that between the time that the petition was filed and the decision, the young lawyers assigned to save Cory Maples life moved on to greener pastures. New lawyers were assigned, but they were busy trying to figure out how to achieve work/life balance. Nobody noticed that the adverse decision arrived and the 42 days to file the notice of appeal began to run. And ran. And ran out.
Having screwed up once, the quickie solution was to get the Court to play ball with S&C and give them an outlet to save face.
Thereafter, Maples’s mother contacted Sullivan & Cromwell. On Maples’s behalf, new attorneys from the Sullivan & Cromwell firm requested that the Alabama trial court re-issue its Rule 32 Order so that he might file a timely appeal. The trial court refused, stating in an order that it was “unwilling to enter into subterfuge in order to gloss over mistakes made by counsel for [Maples].”
Plan B was to make an end run around their screw up via a habeas corpus petition.
The district court concluded that: (1) Maples’s ineffective-assistance claims were procedurally defaulted because Maples did not timely file an appeal of the dismissal of his Rule 32 petition; (2) even if Maples’s default were the result of his three post-conviction counsel’s failing to file a Rule 32 appeal, such ineffectiveness could not establish cause for the default because there is no constitutional right to post-conviction counsel; and (3) the Alabama appellate courts’ decisions that Maples was not entitled to a sua sponte jury instruction on manslaughter due to voluntary intoxication was not contrary to, or an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law.
The 11th Circuit affirmed in a per curiam opinion.
Cory Maples remains on death row.
Biglaw has made some significant contributions to the cause of death row defendants, taking their cases pro bono, both as a public service as well as a training exercise for their associates. Better that they should practice on death row inmates than major (paying) corporations. Mistakes on paying clients had dire consequences. Mistakes on death row inmates, not so much. Even if their motives were suspect, at least they filled a void of representation, and often did some great work and won some major victories.
But Cory Maples remains on death row because Sullivan & Cromwell blew a deadline. I wonder how many partners and associates will turn out to watch as he’s put to death. The execution chamber isn’t big enough for a law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell’s stature.
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How many more defendants will suffer as big law firms devote more and more of their newly hired associate ranks, for whom there is no paying work, to “helping” the underserved?
Why do big firm lawyers think they can do anything? How many criminal defense lawyers do M&A on the side?
I can say with near certainty that if Covington & Burling hadn’t taken on Cory Maye’s case, Maye would still be on death row in Mississippi. I can also say with near certainty that Maye’s chief counsel, Mississippi public defender Bob Evans, would agree with me. That isn’t a blanket vindication of big law firms that take on death penalty cases. But this post reads like an unfair blanket condemnation of them.
The court was “unwilling to enter into subterfuge in order to gloss over mistakes made by counsel for [Maples].”
Rules are rules, you know, even when a man’s life is on the line.
Nobody noticed that the adverse decision arrived and the 42 days to file the notice of appeal began to run. And ran. And ran out.
Ineffective assistance of counsel, indeed.
I don’t see this post as an unfair blanket condemnation at all, and included the point about Biglaw’s contributions for that specific purpose. But C&Bs work in Cory Maye’s case doesn’t excuse S&Cs failure in Cory Maple’s case. It’s neither a blanket condemnation or blanket vindication. Each deserves effective assistance of counsel, independant of the victories enjoyed by others.
But to the extent that this post reads as a blanket condemnation, that wasn’t its intent. On the other hand, I’m not as impressed with much of the Biglaw work as others.
Is it diffusion of responsibility, or lack of concern about the basic rules that every public defender knows by heart?
Sure. And they screw them up, too.
There’s no excuse for what S & C did, but the number of capital cases for which counsel’s actions, at more than one point along the way, have no excuse is staggering.
The biglaw folks have lost more than one capital defendant because they just didn’t win. So have the little guys and the PDs (who are themselves little guys, of course). What biglaw brings to these cases is resources. That’s no small thing since resources is what those of us in the trenches of them sorely lack.
But they screw up. And they should take some heat for it. But so should a thoroughly unforgiving system. Why in God’s name aren’t you entitled to effective assistance of counsel after a first appeal of right? Why is it OK to say that it’s fine for the client to die because the lawyer hired by the government (put biglaw aside here for a moment) screwed up.
In a money case, when the lawyer screws up the client can sue. In a capital case when the lawyer screws up the client dies. I see a certain lack of equivalence there.
Or take it another way. Alabama death row inmates shouldn’t have to hope that someone from outside the state will come in and represent them to try to demonstrate that the state screwed up and shouldn’t be allowed to kill them.
Take a look at the missed deadline capital cases. Start with Roger Coleman who it turns out wasn’t innocent. But who was killed when the evidence at the time sure suggested that he should have been found not guilty.
Biglaw, little guy. Dead defendant.
I’m not trying to let S & C off the hook. But the real blame is with Alabama and AEDPA and SCOTUS. (And maybe Maples himself, of course, but that’s a different issue.)
Far too many death penalty appeals are based on IAC. Do we need to discuss sleeping during trial again? What distinguishes this post, this case, is that Biglaw touts itself as a better breed, a higher order of lawyer, than the little guys, the solos, from whom so little is expected.
It’s fine to for Biglaw to look down its nose at solos, but then they can’t drop the ball like they have here.
And of course, there is invariably a whole lot of problems to be had on the other side, the law, the courts, etc. But since posts tend to deal with one issue at a time, this one was focused on one firm, one case, one horrible screw up.
“New lawyers were assigned, but they were busy trying to figure out how to achieve work/life balance.”
Given that these are new associates at a BigLaw firm, I would assume their work/life balance consists of working 12 hour minimum days, sleeping, spending money on things that they can’t enjoy, and perhaps whining about it via Twitter. So instead of work/life balance issues, I submit that they were derelict in their “other people’s lives/things that pay” balance estimates.
Cory Maples killed two people in cold blood and has used the legal system to escape justice for 14 years. Sure the system failed. His sentence should have been carried out years ago.
Note that Maples confessed to the crime and never recanted his confession. Forensic evidence strongly supported his confession.
The real question we should be asking is why justice has taken so long.
Justice delayed is justice denied
Note: That you have no history or knowledge in this case so therefore shouldn’t be passing judgement. He had counsel who didn’t do their job correctly and uphold their standard of care while doing their job.
I think that the author of this blog joking about the firm being there watching while an execution taking place is pretty immature, and inconsiderate.
The author of this blog wasn’t joking about it. Perhaps you mean the author of the comment to which you responded?
I knew Cory Maples…
[Ed Note: Balance of comment deleted. You’re welcome to say all the bad things you want about Cory Maples based on your claim of personal knowledge, but you will have to do so using your real name.]
I hate that Cory and his lawyers missed there deadlines and he was not treated “fairly” according to him. But let me shed some light to this case also I was married to Twinks brother and I have a daughter that Stacey Terry has never met. My ex-husband along with his family suffers with this loss every day my ex-husband has never been the same since his brother died. I had to witness my ex-father inlaw balled up and crying in a corner at his sons funeral. So you tell me now is it fair that Staceys family buried him that there are neices and nephews he never got to have a relationship with and he never got to complete his life and have children of his own. So as for me no I do not at all have sympathy that Cory did not get an appeal and I hope he hates every milisecond he sits in that cell and I along with Stacys family will be there at his execution to see that he feels the fear he caused to Stacy and also the pain and own “prison” the Terry family has to live with everday.
June
What makes the government any better than what these men are on death row for? All they are doing is committing a murder legally.
I also know Cory personally. I won’t make excuses for what he did. I have read the case files and dipositions over and over again. there were many mistakes made, go back and read the case files before you make idiotic comments. And the comment that yes the author of this article made about the firm watching the execution is distasteful. I know there are two families suffering, but Cory’s family is suffering also. there are a lot of missing information from that night and even more unanwsered questions. Cory and “Twinky” had been friends for years and years. Also the case mishap is not just on the NY law firm but also on the local officials as they also did nothing but sit on the notice and shove it in a file which is why the Supreme Court is even bothering to hear this case.