Walking the Walk
Late last year or early this year, a man named Gary Hilton gruesomely raped, tortured and killed a woman in the North Georgia mountains.
Fairly quickly, he got arrested. In exchange for a life sentence, he confessed and led the police to where he’d left the woman’s body.
He currently lives in Jackson, Butts County, Georgia, in a not pleasant prison.
As it turns out, he’s suspected of murdering an elderly couple in North Carolina, and was recently charged with murdering a woman in Florida. Florida sought to extradite him. He’s fighting it. Though I’m a lawyer, I know nothing about criminal law other than to refer people to a criminal defense lawyer that I practice with. That said, I was surprised to learn that the current state of the law in Georgia does not afford a person facing extradition on criminal charges a lawyer, as the extradition proceeding is a “civil matter.”
So, a couple of days ago, after having filed a handwritten petition opposing extradition, Hilton faced a trial judge without a lawyer. He argued that he should have a right to a lawyer because, since extradition would result in a criminal proceeding, the extradition process itself should be considered a criminal matter, which under the Sixth Amendment requires that he be given a lawyer. Made some sense to me.
“State Bar of Georgia, lawyers, dedicated to the promise of justice for all.” That’s how a Bar TV ad ends. I’m not a fan of lawyers, as a group, getting involved with politics. I think it’s especially silly to have feel-good concept PSA’s to improve our “image.”
For the purpose of this post, I’ll assume that the judge that ruled that Gary Hilton did not have a right to a lawyer for his extradition hearing this week correctly applied current Georgia law. A criminal defense lawyer might have been able to better make Hilton’s argument and failing, provided a record for an appeal that might change the law. But Hilton didn’t have a lawyer. Where were we, the Georgia lawyers “dedicated to the promise of justice for all?” He’s a fairly detestable guy; and, a lawyer volunteering to represent him would be taking on a thankless task. But, if we mean what we say in the TV ads where we “talk the talk,” one of us should have been in Butts County next to Mr. Hilton, nauseating as he is.
6 comments:
Even if he had a lawyer, would it have made any difference? I can't recall a single extradition request that was ever denied.
Probably not Thomas; but, that's not a reason to not provide representation. Before Gideon v. Wainwright, one of the big arguments against providing lawyers to petty criminals was the cost was excessive given the probablity that the defendant was almost always guilty.
Is GA a death pentaly state? FL is. Question - If he does not have adequate representation for his extradition hearing, might he have grounds for avoiding the death pentaly? Perhaps the state requesting the extradition should pay for his attorney.
Georgia does impose the death penalty.
As to avoiding it, in Florida, based on having no representation here, I doubt it; and, I doubt that Florida would be interested in paying for his defense here.
I probably should have written this post differently, as I was writing really to my fellow lawyers. My point was really to castigate my profession.
Dave...I've never quite understood this, but what lawyer, on planet earth, would represent this "pond scum?"
And once that lawyer does represent him, how does he sleep at night?
Dilf, most lawyers buy into the proposition that the worst pond scum are entitled to be represented. A great example years back was the ACLU's representation of neo Nazis in, I believe, Skokie, IL.
The reason? We have an adversary system. The two sides, with equal resources (in theory, and it is to be hoped, in practice) slug out the issue before the Court. Without equal resources, including professional representation, the outcome is suspect. Put legally, people charged with crimes are entitled to due process.
At heart, it's a matter of basic fairness. If my town enters a baseball tournament and is allowed to use the Boston Red Sox players on its team, is it fair to your town to have to use the local over forty softball team?
Finally, though I don't do criminal pro bono as I'm not qualified, I might have trouble sleeping, but that's no reason not to fulfill a professional obligation.
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