Crime

Finley Knows Why Judges Ignore Appointed Lawyer's 'Incompetence, Malfeasance'

April 23, 2015, 12:51 PM

The Detroit News' editorial page editor takes sharp shots at a discredited court-appointed defense lawyer.

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Wayne County judges have "continued to assign [Robert Slamenka] the cases of indigent defendants despite more than 16 reprimands and admonishments since 1986 from the Attorney Discipline Board for failing to provide adequate defense to dozens of clients," Nolan Finley writes in a hard-hitting column.

He doesn't do his job very well, at least from his clients' perspective, since nearly all of them end up behind bars. ...

He's kept getting taxpayer dollars to handle cases even after being arrested for breaking into the homes of his ex-girlfriend and a client. ... 

He stands as the most glaring example of a legal system in Wayne County that values expediency over justice. . . . The principle of blind justice has been twisted into blind to injustice.

Finley believes judges "are willing to ignore his incompetence, malfeasance and [break-in] conviction [because] he makes the trains run on time — which in Wayne County means he gets his clients to plead guilty quickly and without the expense of a jury trial." 

The opinion pages editor quotes Professor David Moran, co-founder of the University of Michigan Law School's Innocence Clinic, which represents a Slameka client sentenced to life in prison for a murder someone else now admits committing:

"Unfortunately, Bob Slameka is part of the legal culture that exists in Wayne County courts. The faster you move cases through the courts, the more cases you can take and the more money the county saves. . . . Everybody wins except the defendant."

-- Alan Stamm


Read more:  The Detroit News


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