by Michael B. Skinner · Wednesday November 4, 2009 11:14 am PERMALINK
The Court of Appeals considered, pretty seriously based on its previous orders in the case, the question of whether there was error when the defendant's lawyer in People v Davenport stopped representing the defendant to take a job in the two-lawyer prosecutor's office that was prosecuting him.The long and short of the opinion is that this is a serious issue, but if the prosecution can establish that the conflicted attorney was sufficiently shielded from participation in his previous client's case, then there is no reversible error.
The court also considered a number of other ineffective assistance claims, all of which made the defense attorney's representation definitely sound a wee-bit fishy, but the court concluded repeatedly that Davenport couldn't establish his burden under Strickland.
So, what looks like a lot of strong appellate effort on the part of the defense lawyer still comes up a loser at the end of the day.
