Court Opinion

ID: 9678035
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 06:09:18.851922+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:01.468481
License: Public Domain

BEN Z. GRANT, Justice,
concurring.
I am compelled to concur with this opinion because of the Supreme Court opinion in Peeler v. Hughes & Luce, 909 S.W.2d 494, 496 (Tex.1995). The ramifications of the holding in the Peeler case might be better characterized as the incompetent criminal lawyer defense act — and the more incompetent, the stronger the defense. If a criminal lawyer can bungle a case sufficiently so that his client will never get out of prison, then the attorney can never be responsible for malpractice.
In such a legal malpractice claim, it is generally because the party is in prison that he or she may have grounds to complain about his attorney.
I agree with Chief Justice Phillips’s dissent in the Peeler case that even if the defendant has not been exonerated, if the defendant can prove that there would have been no conviction but for the attorney’s malpractice, relief should be available.
I respectfully concur.