Source: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2014/12/10/what-can-you-do-with-a-drunken-lawyer
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 00:54:23+00:00

Document:
Last night, at 10:51 p.m., Georgia executed Robert Wayne Holsey, a man with borderline intellectual functioning who was convicted of killing a sheriff’s deputy in 1995. Holsey was put to death despite concerns about the quality of his defense. His court-appointed attorney, who was later disbarred, admitted to trying the case while drinking up to a quart of vodka each evening, the equivalent of about 21 shots.
The consumption of so much alcohol would seem a powerful foundation for a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. But for decades, in courts across the United States, defendants who have argued that their trial lawyers were drunk or high have found it extraordinarily difficult to prevail on appeal.
a Las Vegas lawyer who arrived in court “90 minutes late in the company of a young woman wearing a black halter top and tight pants:” Alcohol level .075.
a DWI lawyer in New Mexico who stumbled into the wrong courtroom: Alcohol level .11.
an Indiana attorney accused of inappropriately touching a court employee three different times: Alcohol level .154.
People v. Garrison (California): In 1989, the California Supreme Court affirmed Richard William Garrison’s two murder convictions even though his attorney was an alcoholic who, during the trial, “drank in the morning, during court recesses, and throughout the evening.” On the trial’s second day, the attorney “was arrested for driving to the courthouse with a .27 percent blood-alcohol content.” After the trial, the attorney died from his bout with alcoholism.
Frye v. Lee (North Carolina): Ronald Wayne Frye was sentenced to death in North Carolina for stabbing his landlord to death with a pair of scissors. In 2000, a federal appeals court noted that one of Frye’s lawyers had a “decades-long routine of drinking approximately twelve ounces of rum each evening ” – a routine he had maintained during Frye’s trial. While saying it was “indeed troubled” by this, the court affirmed Frye’s death sentence – and he was executed the following year.
Gardner v. Dixon (North Carolina): John Sterling Gardner, convicted of killing two restaurant employees, was also sentenced to death in North Carolina. Affidavits submitted on appeal described how Gardner’s trial attorney struggled with alcohol and cocaine. His ex-wife said he would binge and go days without sleeping or eating, while his former babysitter described him coming home at 3 or 4 in the morning, “drunk and stoned.” A federal appeals court recited these affidavits while affirming Gardner’s death sentence in 1992. He was executed later that year.
Fowler v. Parratt (Nebraska): In 1982 a federal appeals court upheld Richard Fowler’s conviction for embezzlement even though his trial attorney was an alcoholic who was later disbarred. In a deposition, the attorney admitted to suffering blackouts while defending Fowler.
Haney v. State (Alabama): When Judy Haney stood trial on a charge of murder for hire, one of her attorneys showed up in court so drunk that the judge found him in contempt of court and threw him in the city jail overnight, to dry out. After the lawyer was released, the trial went on, and Haney was convicted and sentenced to death. In 1991 the Court of Criminal Appeals of Alabama affirmed her conviction while vacating her death sentence on other grounds.
Burnett v. Collins (Texas): In 1993 a federal appeals court affirmed Charles Albert Burnett’s two convictions for aggravated robbery. During the trial Burnett smelled booze on his attorney’s breath – and after the trial, his attorney went into rehab for alcohol treatment.
White v. State (Florida): Jerry White was sentenced to death for the murder of a customer during a convenience-store robbery. At trial his attorney’s drinking problem was so evident that each morning the judge had the prosecutor check the attorney’s breath. A defense investigator “said he had witnessed the attorney shoot up with cocaine during trial recesses and saw him using speed, Quaaludes, alcohol, morphine and marijuana after court,” according to a law review article. On appeal, even the trial prosecutor filed an affidavit saying the defense attorney “appeared confused or fatigued.” The Florida Supreme Court affirmed White’s death sentence in 1995, and he was executed that year.
Wilson v. Commonwealth (Kentucky): Twenty-six years after being convicted of murder and kidnapping, Gregory L. Wilson remains on Kentucky’s Death Row, unable to win a new trial based on his lead trial counsel’s drinking problems. That attorney, according to his co-counsel, “manifested all the signs of a burned-out alcoholic.” His home prominently displayed a large flashing Budweiser sign and his business card listed the phone number for a local bar, Kelly’s Keg.

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