Court Opinion

ID: 9529027
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:46:36.043127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:36.230270
License: Public Domain

SHEPARD, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
Respondent represented a prisoner whom she believed was innocent of the rape for which he was incarcerated and she presented DNA evidence as evidence for her contention. After this evidence was submitted at a hearing, everyone pretty much went about tending to other business, except for the imprisoned client and his family. While the judge and magistrate who held the matter under advise*967ment for two years bear the principal responsibility, Respondent's stewardship of the client's interests was a part of the overall fault.
My colleagues say that there is no way to know whether this failure to communicate with her client Harold Buntin and his family would have hastened a ruling and shortened the time wrongly spent in prison. -I would like to think that the Court is wrong about that, and that a reasonable responsiveness to the client would have led to use of the tools available for obtaining a ruling. I thus believe a short period of suspension is warranted.