packy
11-02-2008, 07:56 AM
Disgusting if true but not surprised
http://apublicdefender.com/2008/10/31/pro-se-per-se/
You know how it’s common knowlege that most appeals aren’t successful? Well, if you were a pro-se petitioner in Louisiana for the last 13 years, you knew that you wouldn’t win. Why is that? Because the Chief Judge of their Court of Appeals directed his clerk to summarily deny all appeals from pro-se petitioners without circulating the appeal to other judges.
The clerk, ridden with guilt, committed suicide earlier this year and left a note confessing everything.
This immoral and apparently illegal policy was in place until Jerrold Peterson, the staffer charged with implementing it, blew his brains out in May of last year. Peterson was driven to it in part, his suicide note suggested, by guilt over the nefarious tasks the judges made him perform.
In his note Peterson explained how the court gave indigent appellants the bum’s rush.
Although every criminal writ application is supposed to be reviewed by three judges, he was deputed to winnow out any that had been filed pro se and arrange for their automatic rejection.
Thus were an estimated 2,500 appeals deep-sixed without any judicial consideration whatsoever. (much more at link)
http://apublicdefender.com/2008/10/31/pro-se-per-se/
You know how it’s common knowlege that most appeals aren’t successful? Well, if you were a pro-se petitioner in Louisiana for the last 13 years, you knew that you wouldn’t win. Why is that? Because the Chief Judge of their Court of Appeals directed his clerk to summarily deny all appeals from pro-se petitioners without circulating the appeal to other judges.
The clerk, ridden with guilt, committed suicide earlier this year and left a note confessing everything.
This immoral and apparently illegal policy was in place until Jerrold Peterson, the staffer charged with implementing it, blew his brains out in May of last year. Peterson was driven to it in part, his suicide note suggested, by guilt over the nefarious tasks the judges made him perform.
In his note Peterson explained how the court gave indigent appellants the bum’s rush.
Although every criminal writ application is supposed to be reviewed by three judges, he was deputed to winnow out any that had been filed pro se and arrange for their automatic rejection.
Thus were an estimated 2,500 appeals deep-sixed without any judicial consideration whatsoever. (much more at link)