Court Opinion

ID: 9499041
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 17:36:11.103295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:59:14.917579
License: Public Domain

MARTHA CRAIG DAUGHTREY, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
While I, too, concur in Judge Suhrhein-rich’s opinion, I write separately in order to express my dismay at Judge Boggs’s unjustified attack directly on both the capital defense bar and indirectly on the members of this court. For the chief judge of a federal appellate court to state that it is “virtually inevitable” that “any mildly-sentient defense attorney” would consider playing the equivalent of Russian roulette with the life of a client is truly disturbing. *590Such a comment is an affront to the dedication of the women and men who struggle tirelessly to uphold their ethical duty to investigate fully and present professionally all viable defenses available to their clients. It also silently accuses the judges on this court of complicity in the alleged fraud by countenancing the tactics outlined.
The fact that Judge Boggs’s sensibilities have been offended by a delay in the State of Ohio’s rush to execution in order to ensure compliance with constitutional mandates is, I believe, less indicative of the existence a vast, diabolical, defense-bar conspiracy to derail our criminal justice system than it is consistent with the persistent problems plaguing the administration of capital punishment. If we are to continue to sanction imposition of the death penalty, we must be willing to guarantee a level of acceptable legal representation for capital defendants that will protect the interests of the accused, as the constitution demands. My experience over more than 30 years on the state and federal appellate benches leads me to the inescapable conclusion, contrary to Judge Boggs’s intimations, not that capital defense attorneys are engaged in a demented, premeditated game of “gotcha” with the courts, but rather that those lawyers representing the absolute pariahs of society are frequently hamstrung by a critical lack of relevant experience, an obvious lack of time and resources, or both. If Judge Boggs truly wishes to bring finality to murder prosecutions in this circuit, I would invite him to spend less time denigrating the dedicated, but often overwhelmed, attorneys who have accepted the responsibility of representation in these very difficult cases, and more time working for improvement of the system.