'Philadelphia Lawyer' a misnomer in criminal post-conviction realm

A Philadelphia Inquirer and ProPublica investigation found case after case in criminal post-conviction actions where court-appointed attorneys did minimal work to examine their clients’ claims and rejected what later turned out to be legitimate legal issues. The findings reveal that Philadelphia’s post-conviction system repeatedly delayed or denied justice for wrongfully convicted people who then spent years or decades behind bars.

The news organizations reviewed 250 of Philadelphia’s reversed convictions and sentences since 2018 in violent felony cases. Wagner was one of at least 50 people whose lawyers said there was no basis to challenge their cases, only for judges to later decide they deserved new trials or sentences. 

While in some cases the exonerating evidence did not emerge until years after the no-merit letter was filed, a majority were tossed out based on issues the PCRA lawyers overlooked or rejected. 

Three years of invoices appointed attorneys submitted to the court, covering 83 homicide PCRA cases in which the lawyers filed no-merit letters, show the extent of lawyers’ efforts.

Those attorneys did not arrange a single phone call with the client, contact the trial lawyer or obtain the police or prosecution case files about three-quarters of the time. Those case files have been a key source of evidence in overturned convictions since Philadelphia’s district attorney began making them available to lawyers six years ago.

Lawyers Did Little Before Declaring Cases Meritless

Homicide cases are the most serious ones a lawyer can handle. But many lawyers handling homicide Post Conviction Relief Act cases never spoke with their clients before rejecting their claims. Here’s how often they took basic steps in 83 cases.

Data is drawn from all invoices submitted in 2023, ’24 and ’25 for no-merit letters filed in a total of 83 homicide cases.

In some cases, records show the attorneys rejected their clients’ claims just days or weeks after being appointed and submitted filings with factual errors, including the wrong defendant’s name. They filed no-merit letters despite red flags, such as a client’s co-defendant having already been exonerated or a detective who locked the client up having been arrested for assaulting witnesses or tampering with evidence. 

Daniel Anders, the administrative judge who oversees Philadelphia’s court-appointed counsel system, did not respond to requests for comment. 

Judge Barbara McDermott, who oversaw many PCRA cases before recently retiring from Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas, defended the system and said it is working as intended. 

“We’re never going to be a perfect system, but within the system we’ve had we’ve done the best we can,” she said, adding that no-merit letters play an important role in shutting down pointless challenges. “At some point, there has to be finality to cases.”

In Pennsylvania, a person looking to challenge their conviction starts by filing a PCRA petition, often handwritten on a state-issued form. If it’s a person’s first PCRA, a judge will assign a lawyer to amend it. 

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Maryland court reinstates murder conviction for Adnan Syed of 'Serial' fame

The Maryland Supreme Court upheld an appellate court’s decision to reinstate the murder conviction of Adnan Syed, a blow to the “Serial” podcast subject but one that probably does not conclude his legal fight, reported the Washington Post.

In a lengthy majority opinion, the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutors and a lower court judge had “worked an injustice” in a key hearing in the case by not giving proper notice to the victim’s brother as prosecutors moved to vacate Syed’s conviction in 2022. The brother, who lives in California, was informed of the hearing three days before it occurred and spoke by Zoom after a circuit court judge rejected his request to postpone it until he could fly to Baltimore.

The majority ruling said Syed’s convictions should be reinstated and the case sent back to the circuit court for a new hearing. It marks the latest twist in a long and closely watched legal drama that has surrounded Syed since his murder conviction in 2000 over the death of his ex-girlfriend, 18-year-old Hae Min Lee, in Baltimore. Syed’s story captivated millions worldwide after he was featured in “Serial,” which reexamined his case and suggested Syed was wrongly convicted.

The 4-3 ruling was written by Justice Jonathan Biran, focused on whether Young Lee’s rights as a crime victim had been violated. Although Maryland law does not explicitly grant victims a chance to speak in these motion hearings, the Supreme Court concluded that crime victims or their representatives do have a right to be heard. The court cited a more general victim’s rights statute, which provides a right for victims to be heard where the “alteration of a sentence” is considered, as well as Maryland’s Declaration of Rights in the state constitution, which mandates a victim’s right to be heard at a criminal justice proceeding.

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Trump pursues desperate removal of hush money case to federal court

Former US President Donald Trump filed a motion to move his New York hush money case to federal court, an attempt that could overturn his conviction and delay his sentencing date until after the presidential election in November, reported Juris.

Trump’s legal team asked the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to take the case, claiming the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office “violated the Presidential immunity doctrine … by relying on evidence of President Trump’s official acts” while in office. The motion cited a recent decision by the US Supreme Court that ruled former US presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for their actions taken within their “official responsibility.”

The motion stated:

These ongoing harms must be stopped. The impending election cannot be redone. The currently unaddressed harm to the Presidency resulting from this improper prosecution will adversely impact the operations of the federal government for generations.

Trump’s attorneys also requested New York County Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan’s recusal from the hush money case. The motion cited public statements made by Justice Merchan’s daughter in 2019 that “indicat[ed] that [Justice Merchan] had been critical of President Trump’s use of Twitter during his Presidency.” Trump’s team argued that these statements “confirm judicial bias and hostility towards President Trump’s 2018 Tweets, which are a core issue in the pending Presidential immunity motion.”

Trump’s team claimed Justice Merchan had a “conflict of interest” in the case since he “made improper contributions to Democrat interests” in 2020. The former president’s attorneys further claimed issues of bias because Justice Merchan’s daughter worked on current Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2019 presidential campaign and her company worked on President Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign.

In March 2023, a grand jury returned an indictment charging the former president with 34 violations of falsifying business records in the first degree. Trump was convicted of all 34 felony counts in May. Trump had sent $130,000 in reimbursements to his attorney Michael Cohen for a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, and prosecutors argued that he falsified records to conceal the hush money payments to unlawfully influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

The former president filed a motion to dismiss the indictment and vacate the jury’s verdicts under the claim of presidential immunity, and the motion is currently pending before Justice Merchan. In July, Justice Merchan pushed Trump’s sentencing date in the case until September 18 so he could consider the presidential immunity claim. Trump’s team then requested the sentencing in his hush money case be postponed until after the November election, claiming the current scheduling would constitute election interference.

This is not Trump’s first attempt to remove the case from New York’s jurisdiction. A federal judge in 2023 rejected Trump’s first attempt, finding that the former president failed to show that the alleged conduct was related to his official responsibilities as the president. US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein stated, “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president’s official duties.”

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Maryland governor pardons 175,000 marijuana convictions

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore will issue a mass pardon of more than 175,000 marijuana convictions, one of the nation’s most sweeping acts of clemency involving a drug now in widespread recreational use, reported the Washington Post.

The pardons will forgive low-level marijuana possession charges for an estimated 100,000 people in what the Democratic governor said is a step to heal decades of social and economic injustice that disproportionately harms Black and Brown people. Moore noted criminal records have been used to deny housing, employment and education, holding people and their families back long after their sentences have been served.

“I’m ecstatic that we have a real opportunity with what I’m signing to right a lot of historical wrongs,” Moore said in an interview. “If you want to be able to create inclusive economic growth, it means you have to start removing these barriers that continue to disproportionately sit on communities of color.”

Moore called the scope of his pardons “the most far-reaching and aggressive” executive action among officials nationwide who have sought to unwind criminal justice inequities with the growing legalization of marijuana. Nine other states and multiple cities have pardoned hundreds of thousands of old marijuana convictions in recent years, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Legalized marijuana markets reap billions in revenue for state governments each year, and polls show public sentiment on the drug has also turned — with more people both embracing cannabis use and repudiating racial disparities exacerbated by the War on Drugs.

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1,240 people had been arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 attack

Nearly three years after a mob attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in support of former President Donald J. Trump, the criminal investigation into the events of that day pushes on, reported The New York Times.

Prosecutors have called the riot inquiry the largest in the history of the Justice Department, and there is no doubt it is vast by any measure.

Every week, a few more people are arrested.

As of December, about 1,240 people had been arrested in connection with the attack, accused of crimes ranging from trespassing, a misdemeanor, to seditious conspiracy, a felony.

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It is not about violent children, or people with criminal records or mental illness--it's about guns

 Gordon Witkin writes 'Here's what we can do about gun violence' in The New York Times in part suggesting:

Today 36 states have laws requiring the reporting of mental health records to NICS. The number of those records in the system has soared, to 6.88 million early this year from 531,000 at the end of 2008. The number of purchases that were blocked because of mental health issues advanced in lock step, Everytown said; those denials rose to more than 11,000 in 2017 from 960 in 2008. But eight other states have laws merely allowing, not requiring, mental health records to be reported, a far lower standard. And six states — Arkansas, Michigan, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wyoming — and the District of Columbia have no relevant law at all, so they’re providing only modest amounts of mental health documents. As of January, Montana had provided 36 relevant mental health records; Wyoming had provided 22.

Although Witkin's argument has merit, it ignores an obvious truth.  Every country in the world has mental illness. Not every county in world has mass shootings literally every day. What does America have that all the other countries of the world don't--guns, guns and more guns.  It is not about violent children, or people with criminal records or mental illness--it's about guns, 450 million of them.

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New program seeks to clear criminal convictions in Pennsylvania

Nearly three million people in Pennsylvania have a criminal record and more than 200,000 new criminal cases are filed each year, reported PennLive.com.

With each conviction comes a set of collateral consequences – nearly 900 in Pennsylvania – that restrict housing, employment and even education.

A new project aims to reduce those effects and help people with criminal convictions get a new start.

TImeDone Pennsylvania is a new program from the Alliance for Safety and Justice – a national criminal justice reform non-profit – seeking to help people clear their records.

TimeDone provides connections to legal resources and employers for people with criminal records, free background checks, as well as other services like person finance workshops and planning for ownership.

The group is hosting a family-friendly block party from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Break the Chainz, 2134 N 6th Street, Harrisburg. The event is a launch party for the new initiative.

Along with direct support for people with criminal records, TimeDone and the Alliance for Safety and Justice are advocating for the state legislature to expand eligibility for record sealing – an effort currently underway in the House and Senate – making changes to the state’s record sealing process and making record sealing automatic for some low-level misdemeanors.

The legislature passed a Clean Slate Law in 2018 that automatically seals some low-level offenses after 10 years of the person remaining crime free. A bill working through the senate right now would shorten that time to seven years for misdemeanors, five years for summary offenses and expand the law to include some low-level drug offenses.

More information about TimeDone is available at timedone.org.

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Colorado governor reduces man's sentence by 100 years

Colorado Governor Jared Polis  reduced by 100 years the sentence of 26-year-old truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, whose brakes failed, resulting in four deaths. Originally sentenced to 110 years for an offense with no criminal intent, public outcry against Aguilera-Mederos’ harsh treatment prompted the governor’s and the district attorney’s offices to reconsider the sentence, reported Jurist.

Aguilera-Mederos was driving a lumber truck on a mountainous part of Interstate 70 when his brakes gave out as he travelled downhill. The truck ran into stopped traffic and burst into flames. He was charged with four counts of homicide and several counts of assault and reckless driving.

No criminal intent was alleged, but the resulting deaths elevated the accident to a “crime of violence,” triggering mandatory minimum sentencing enhancements. Under Colorado law, the facts required the judge to order the sentences to be served consecutively rather than concurrently. District Court Judge Bruce Jones stated at the sentencing hearing that he would not have handed down such an aggressive sentence if not for the mandatory minimums.

Five million people signed a petition calling for clemency. Kim Kardashian used her platform to call for reforms to the state’s mandatory minimum laws. In response to the backlash, District Attorney Alexis King filed for reconsideration which would have been heard on January 13 if not for Governor Polis’ grant of clemency. In his clemency letter, Polis spoke about “an urgency to remedy this unjust sentence and restore confidence in the uniformity and fairness of our criminal justice system.”

Polis also told Aguilera-Mederos:

Your highly unusual sentence highlights the lack of uniformity between sentences for similarly situated crimes, which is particularly true when individuals are charged with offenses that require mandatory minimum sentences. This case will hopefully spur an important conversation about sentencing laws, but any subsequent changes to the law would not retroactively impact your sentence, which is why I am granting you this limited commutation.

Aguilera-Mederos will now be parole eligible on December 30, 2026.

Also on Thursday, Governor Polis pardoned 1,351 people in Colorado who had been convicted of possessing two ounces or less of marijuana.

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In Florida failure to admit crime after conviction can enhance sentence

 A divided Florida Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a judge’s decision to impose a maximum prison sentence in a firearm case after the defendant maintained his innocence and refused to show remorse, reported the Orlando Weekly.

Justices, in a 5-2 decision, said Leon County Circuit Judge Robert Wheeler’s decision to impose a 15-year prison sentence did not violate the constitutional due-process rights of Alvin Davis, who was arrested by Tallahassee police in 2016 after a gun was found in a car in which he was a passenger.

A jury convicted Davis of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, but during a sentencing hearing he spoke to the judge and maintained his innocence. Wheeler cited Davis’ failure to take “responsibility” for the crime and imposed a 15-year sentence that was the maximum allowed under state law.

The 1st District Court of Appeal backed Wheeler, prompting an appeal by Davis to the Supreme Court. In a 21-page majority opinion Thursday, Chief Justice Charles Canady rejected arguments that Davis’ rights had been violated, pointing in part to the judge’s discretion in sentencing and issues such as Davis’ criminal record.

“The trial judge had numerous valid reasons for imposing the maximum sentence here, but … he did not need to articulate any reason,” Canady wrote. “The judge was statutorily authorized to impose a sentence up to 15 years based solely on the fact of the conviction, regardless of any sentencing considerations and whether or not Davis took responsibility for his actions. ... Whether a defendant says nothing at sentencing or takes full responsibility and is able to show that he is a pillar of the community, a judge retains the discretion to impose the maximum sentence.”

But Justice Ricky Polston, in a dissent joined by Justice Jorge Labarga, wrote that the majority opinion was inconsistent with legal precedent and “has no basis in our statutory sentencing scheme.”

“Showing remorse is admitting you did something wrong —- an admission of guilt,” Polston wrote. “And increasing a defendant’s sentence based on the failure to show remorse is punishing a defendant for failing to admit guilt. Punishing someone unless they confess guilt of a crime is a violation of due process and the right against self-incrimination. Accordingly, I would hold that a trial court violates a defendant’s constitutional right to due process and right against self-incrimination where it penalizes a defendant for the failure to admit guilt.”

Under state guidelines, Davis could have faced a sentence of about 10 years in prison to the maximum of 15 years.

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