The Dallas Observer reports, "Kevin Glasheen Fought to See Innocent Prisoners Compensated, Then Fought To Take Millions For Himself." It's written by Brantley Hargrove, and it's a lengthy examination of the issues in this case.
Steven Phillips was about to boil over. This, the attorneys in the room must have known, wasn't good for anyone.
At 51, Phillips had a delicate drawl, but the rest of him was all rangy wildcat sinew. He was a bit of a genetic oddity. He didn't lift weights, yet his neck was thick, tapered upward from a large pair of muscles that sat like small hillocks on his shoulders. He was a native Texan, born in Abilene, but he'd grown up in the Arkansas Ozarks and had, until just recently, handled himself just fine for 25 years in a couple of Texas prisons, including the Coffield Unit, populated by violent felons.
Now, here he was, in January 2010, in a Dallas skyscraper getting prodded about his marginal history as a sex addict and a peeping Tom. Phillips wasn't denying any of that. He knew he'd come a long way since his parole got revoked in '97, when he scaled a woman's balcony and peered through her window. But those turbulent nights lay in the distant past. He worked at keeping it that way every single day, adhering to a rigid 12-step program. "Every man is responsible for working out his own salvation," Phillips liked to say.
As far as he was concerned, this lawyer was just flinging mud. He thought he was there to get grilled about a lawsuit he'd filed against a guy named Jeff Blackburn, a famed Amarillo defense attorney known for his work with the Innocence Project of Texas, and against Kevin Glasheen, a top-gun personal-injury lawyer from Lubbock, who was in the room at this very moment, monitoring the deposition. What did any of this have to do with his case?
Phillips' suit was over the $1 million and change he'd been charged by Glasheen. Their partnership, he says, began as a plan to file a lawsuit against the city of Dallas, whose police force decades before had made the arrest that sent Phillips away. The lawsuit never got filed, but in the spring of 2009, not long after Phillips hired Glasheen, Texas lawmakers passed a bill more than tripling the amount of money the state pays the wrongfully convicted. The law had been championed by Glasheen and Blackburn. According to Glasheen, that championing was part of their work as Phillips' lawyers. But after the law passed, Phillips fired Glasheen and filed the compensation papers with the state himself. Now he wanted a judge to void that contract and block Glasheen from collecting 25 percent on the $4 million coming Phillips' way.
And:
The Innocence Project of Texas defends Blackburn's right to make a living. But others inside the organization see it differently. John Stickels, a UT-Arlington professor who served on the organization's board, left the organization over the fee arrangements. Michelle Moore, a Dallas public defender who works innocent-prisoner cases, split with the Innocence Project of Texas for similar reasons.
Phillips' lawsuit is scheduled for a jury trial in November, but it's not just exonerees who are pursuing legal action against Glasheen. In January, the State Bar of Texas, the member organization for the state's attorneys, sued Glasheen in a Lubbock court, citing professional misconduct. They accused him of drawing up a contract that claimed an interest in an "administrative action" — filing a one-page compensation form — and for lobbying for a contingency fee. They also dinged him for taking cut of an annuity that hadn't been paid.
Earlier coverage of the fee dispute case begins at the link. Related posts are in the wrongful incarceration index
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