“But only six lawyers in the last decade have been publicly sanctioned for work on court-appointed post-conviction cases.”
The appeals court flagged more than 250 cases of judges sitting on their hands while appointed lawyers sandbagged their own clients. Six lawyers sanctioned. Zero judges disciplined. A Philadelphia judge handed a lawyer someone else’s no-merit brief to copy, then accepted the copy. The lawyers depend on those judges for their next appointment, so nobody has any reason to fight for the prisoner.