PROFIT OR PRINCIPLE IN EXONEREE LITIGATION?
Categories: Essays
Written By: Billy Sinclair
Amarillo attorney Jeff Blackburn is well-known and highly-respected—both in Texas and nationwide—for his work with the Innocence Project of Texas and judicial activism in helping wrongfully convicted persons get released from prison. Lubbock attorney Kevin Glasheen is not so well known but many consider him a Republican powerhouse who brings tremendous legal resources to the table in the wrongfully convicted cases he represents.
The Dallas Morning News reported on December 11, 2009 that Blackburn and Glasheen joined forces and agree to split the fees they earned representing the wrongfully convicted on a 60-40 basis. “There’s no doubt that we made a lot of money, and we earned it,” Glasheen told the Morning News.
One of the cases Glasheen and Blackburn chose to make money off of involved Steven Charles Phillips who was wrongfully convicted and spent 25 years in the Texas prison system for a string of sex crimes in Dallas County. Glasheen and Blackburn were retained by Phillips to file a civil rights lawsuit seeking monetary damages for his wrongful conviction, but the attorneys ultimately decided a lawsuit was not necessary after the Texas Legislature this year dramatically increased the amount of compensation awarded to individuals who are wrongfully convicted.
While Texas State Representative Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, was the primary mover of the increased wrongful conviction compensation package through the legislature, many people in the death penalty arena agree Blackburn deserves significant credit for the bill’s passage because of his high-profile work with the Innocence Project in securing the release of scores of wrongfully convicted individuals.
However, before the ink on the legislative bill had dried and the pats on the backs subsided than Steven Phillips launched a high-profile lawsuit against Blackburn and Glasheen alleging the attorneys were charging him $1 million for services not rendered. Phillips’ lawsuit, and the media attention is generated, brought to the public fore the unseemly practice of Blackburn and Glasheen profiting off the suffering of those individuals who had spent decades in prison for crimes they did not commit.
“Accepting fees from exonerees for services not directly connected to the nonprofit Texas Innocence Project is not illegal,” the Morning News reported. “But at least one public watchdog group says it appears improper, and a state legislator says he may file a bill to prohibit such profiteering.”
That legislator is none other than Rep. Anchia who told the Morning News: “They [Blackburn and Glasheen] should be helping the exonerees on a pro bono basis. The exonerees have suffered enough.”
Rep. Anchia refuses to recognize one fundamental axiom: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. It cannot be realistically expected that attorneys like Blackburn and Glasheen should work on wrongfully convicted cases on a pro bono basis. They would ultimately go bankrupt and end up among the ranks of the homeless. If Rep. Anchia feels so strongly about the issue the exonerees having suffered “enough” (and I certainly believe he feels that way), then he should introduce a bill requiring the State of Texas, the entity responsible for the wrongful convictions, to pay any and all legal fees associated with a successful wrongful conviction lawsuit. That is the best way to resolve the issue of attorney compensation.
But I do have a serious problem with one allegation made in Steven Phillips’ lawsuit: he charged that Blackburn has, as reported by the Morning News, “used his position with the Innocence Project of Texas to hand-pick cases that would represent the greatest potential compensation funds. The lawsuit says he then referred the men exonerated in those cases to Glasheen. In return, Glasheen and Blackburn divide what the lawsuits estimates to be about $8 million for fees they claim from 13 clients exonerated in recent years.”
That’s a serious charge, and if is true, it would indeed reveal two attorneys unscrupulously profiteering off the suffering of people wrongfully convicted. Allegations are easily made but difficult to prove. We will have to wait and see just what the Phillips lawsuit develops. It has already cast an ugly pall over the wrongfully convicted issue which could very well have permanent damaging consequences.
