Texas AP has, "Legal help too slow in Texas arrest, high court says," written by Mike Graczyk, via the San Antonio Express-News.
A man whose life was turned upside-down by a wrongful arrest and weeks in jail should have been given access to a lawyer sooner so he could have shown the arrest was erroneous, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday.
The high court ruled 8-1 in the case of Walter Rothgery. In 2004, three weeks after he arrived from Arizona to take a job managing an RV park in Gillespie County, Rothgery was arrested for carrying a gun as a convicted felon. No lawyer was provided at his first court hearing.
The arrest, based on bad information in a computer database, left Rothgery unable to get a full-time job. And by the time he was indicted six months later, he was broke, unable to afford a lawyer, had his bond tripled and was jailed in a county lockup 100 miles from his home.
A sympathetic warden helped him find an attorney to obtain documentation showing Rothgery had no felony record, allowing him to be released. The weapons charge then was dropped.
Rothgery, however, sued Gillespie County for violating his constitutional right to counsel. When a federal court and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected his suit, his attorneys took the case to the Supreme Court. The ruling Monday sends his suit back to the lower courts.
"Texas really is part of America now," Rothgery, 57, said Monday from Llano, where he works in an equipment rental store.
The Texas Fair Defense Project, which brought the case, has this to say:
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 today in Rothgery v. Gillespie County that Texas is violating the Sixth Amendment by failing to appoint counsel within a reasonable time after indigent defendants have their initial appearance before a judge or magistrate and are informed of the charges against them.
Writing for the majority, Justice Souter noted that the practice in Texas is out-of-step with clear Supreme Court precedent on when the right to counsel attaches, and with the practice of at least 43 states and the federal government, which provide counsel to defendants before, at, or soon after their initial appearance before a magistrate or judge.
And:
"The U.S. Supreme Court today reaffirmed loud and clear that the Sixth Amendment right to counsel applies everywhere, including in the state of Texas," said Andrea Marsh, Rothgery's attorney and Executive Director of the Texas Fair Defense Project. "The Court's decision ratifies the most basic right of a person accused of a crime - the right to a lawyer to defend against the government's charges."
The ABA Criminal Justice Section issued this:
The court ruled in favor of Walter Rothgery, whose request for a lawyer was denied by local Texas authorities for six months.
Texas police relied on erroneous information that petitioner Walter Rothgery had a previous felony conviction to arrest him as a felon in possession of a firearm. The officers brought Rothgery before a magistrate judge, as required by state law, for a so-called "article 15.17 hearing," at which the Fourth Amendment probable-cause determination was made, bail was set, and Rothgery was formally apprised of the accusation against him. After the hearing, the magistrate judge committed Rothgery to jail, and he was released after posting a surety bond. Rothgery had no money for a lawyer and made several unheeded oral and written requests for appointed counsel. He was subsequently indicted and rearrested, his bail was increased, and he was jailed when he could not post the bail. Subsequently, Rothgery was assigned a lawyer, who assembled the paperwork that prompted the indictment's dismissal.
NAACP Legal Defense Fund has this:
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) applauds the Supreme Court's 8 to 1 decision affirming a criminal defendant's right to counsel at his first court appearance before a judge. Today's decision arises from the case of Walter Rothgery, who was improperly indicted, arrested and incarcerated after his repeated requests for appointment of counsel were ignored by the Texas courts. LDF, along with the Brennan Center for Justice and the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, filed a friend of the court brief in support of Mr. Rothgery's contention that the right to counsel attaches at the start of legal proceedings, regardless of whether a prosecutor is aware of the commencement of the case.
"With today's decision, the Supreme Court ensures that poor people will be given a prompt and meaningful opportunity to defend against the charges against them," said John Payton, LDF Director-Counsel and President. "With the protection of appointed counsel, indigent people are less likely to be denied their freedom without just cause."
At Grits, Scott Henson has this post.
What's the significance? In the past, a defendant was not entitled to counsel at their bail hearing unless they couldn't make bond or bail was denied. In that case they had counsel appointed fairly quickly. But in the case where a defendant makes bond but also requests a lawyer, Texas courts previously held the defendant could not get a court appointed lawyer until they were indicted, leaving indigent defendants for weeks in limbo with no legal adviser. Now SCOTUS has said courts must appoint counsel for indigent defendants at their bail hearing.
Earlier coverage is here. Coverage of the oral argument is here.
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