LAW STUDENTS’ RARE SATISFACTION
The students and leaders of Boalt Hall’s death penalty clinic got a rare kind of satisfaction this week. Client Walter Rhone, an Alabama man who had been convicted on capital murder charges, was released from prison in February after serving eight years. He met the students and clinic staff Thursday evening at a reception in Berkeley to thank them for their work on his behalf.
Getting Rhone out was a real team effort, put forth by not just Boalt, but the Southern Center for Human Rights and Rhone, a high school dropout who studied law while in prison and filed his own appeals.
Students Jamie Popper, Laura Clark, Michael Lepie and Angel Sevilla drafted the memos and pleadings that culminated in a ruling by an Alabama judge granting Rhone a new trial. Following that order, negotiations for a time-served plea led to his release, according to the clinic.
Popper, who earned her J.D. in 2005, said the experience opened her eyes to the flaws in the judicial system.
While investigating the case, the students turned up evidence of prosecutorial, judicial and juror misconduct during Rhone’s 1999 trial, as well as “strong evidence of innocence,” according to the clinic.
“I learned how many problems there are in the system and how shocking the errors can be,” said Popper, who now works at Appellate Defenders Inc., a San Diego nonprofit. “You shouldn’t just take a judgment on its face.”
Ty Alper, the clinic’s assistant director who also worked on the case, said that Alabama courts are “very hostile to people convicted of horrible crimes,” and that it’s very rare to help a man walk out of prison free. This was a first in Alper’s legal career, he said.
An emotional Rhone said that Boalt students played no small role in his recapture of freedom. They laid the groundwork, he said, sending him briefs and case copies, and providing moral support. He said he was amazed at how young they were: “I was, like, questioning them, but they did a terrific job.”
The benefit was hosted by Arguedas, Cassman & Headley, and raised at least $70,000 for the clinic.
� Petra Pasternak
LAW CLINICS LAND ATTORNEYS FEES
A recent success by the civil rights and immigration law clinics at UC-Davis shines a spotlight on the bureaucracy surrounding local detentions of undocumented immigrants, says Carter White, supervising attorney for the civil rights clinic.
“The feds basically have this arrangement where they’re leasing space and are warehousing hundreds of immigrants in our communities in these county jails,” White said. “In this situation and many others, the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing.”
Last week, federal Judge Ronald Whyte awarded the clinics $16,145 in attorneys’ fees � including $7,000 for law students’ work � after ruling that the government had failed to medicate a mentally ill man being housed in Sacramento County jail, and failed to transport him to his court appointments in another county.
The long odyssey of Juan Carlos Valadez-Lopez, who was originally arrested on a burglary charge in 2002 in Yolo County, involved a public defender who had confused his rap sheet with someone else’s, a finding of incompetence, and a regaining of competency, according to Whyte’s order (.pdf).
At one point, officials at the Sacramento County Jail, who were holding him pending federal immigration hearings, refused to bring Valadez-Lopez to his Yolo County court hearings unless he mounted a habeas corpus effort. There was also confusion over who was actually responsible for bringing Valadez-Lopez to his Yolo County hearings when he was in the Sacramento jail, Whyte’s order said.
Ultimately, in November 2005, after having spent years in detention, Valadez-Lopez was allowed to leave jail pending his immigration court and criminal court hearings.
His case is not unusual, UC-Davis’ White said.
“There are many, many problems that arise in having these multiple layers of government be involved in detaining people,” he said. “There’s not any accountability. If medical care isn’t provided, is it the sheriff’s fault? Is it immigration’s fault?”
Last week, Judge Whyte found the government was liable for the clinic’s legal fees. Attorneys who worked on the case received $125 an hour and law students $50 an hour for their efforts.
� Jessie Seyfer
