Pennsylvania’s post-conviction issues stem from its failure to invest in or set standards for legal defense for poor people.
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issues → stem → people
Lawyers hired under a flat-fee structure that’s banned in some states fell months or years behind, stranding dozens of clients in prison.
- Infinite Extensions
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that → hire → prison
While prisoners face strict deadlines, their lawyers can typically take all the time they want.
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they → face → time
Some kept clients waiting as long as a decade.
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Some → keep → decade
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
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who → write → story
In 2020, seven years after he was appointed to represent a client who claimed he was wrongly convicted, attorney Scott Galloway told the judge that he was still looking into the case and needed more time.
“I am still in the process of interviewing individuals,” the lawyer wrote to the judge in Delaware County, outside Philadelphia, who had already granted him 32 extensions.
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who → appoint → extensions
His client, Nolan O’Neal, had been a 20-year-old high school student when he was arrested for murder by Chester police, who had four eyewitnesses identifying him.
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who → arrest → him
At his 2005 trial, those witnesses all recanted, saying police had pressured them to accuse O’Neal.
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police → recant → O’Neal
By the time Galloway joined the case, in 2013, O’Neal had already spent eight years in prison insisting he was innocent.
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he → join → prison
The lawyer’s job was to help him file a petition under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act.
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him → help → Act
That law provided a narrow path to freedom if Galloway could find crucial new evidence or prove that previous lawyers had mishandled the case.
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lawyers → provide → case
But court records do not show that the attorney did much other than ask for more time.
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attorney → show → time
In 2022, after nine years, one unsuccessful request to access evidence and 41 extensions, Galloway filed a two-page petition addressing just one of the many issues O’Neal had wanted him to raise.
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him → access → issues
It would not be enough to get O’Neal his day in court.
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It → get → court
For more than half a century, Pennsylvania has promised people who claim they didn’t get a fair trial the right to “effective” post-conviction legal representation, regardless of their ability to pay.
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they → promise → ability
That’s more than most states promise people after they have been convicted and lost their appeals.
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they → ’ → appeals
Yet Pennsylvania has done little to fulfill that promise.
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Pennsylvania → do → promise
The Philadelphia Inquirer and ProPublica previously reported that Pennsylvania lets lawyers resolve cases quickly using a practice that is discouraged in several states: filing “no-merit” letters, also known as Finley letters, urging judges to reject their clients’ handwritten or typed claims.
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that → report → claims
In Philadelphia, dozens who had received such letters later had their convictions or sentences overturned based on issues their lawyers had rejected or overlooked.
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lawyers → receive → issues
But the problems go deeper than that: The state’s loose rules and its failure to fund post-conviction work have made the type of breakdown O’Neal encountered a recurring feature of this system.
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O’Neal → go → system
By filing public records requests with courts serving all 67 Pennsylvania counties and analyzing a decade of court dockets, an Inquirer and ProPublica investigation found that the system Pennsylvania set up to protect the right to counsel instead allows, or even encourages, shoddy representation.
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Pennsylvania → file → representation
The news organizations found that:
- Unlike in other types of appeals, attorneys handling post-conviction cases work under no particular timeline and are allowed numerous extensions.
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attorneys → find → extensions
The state also has no standards regarding how many cases lawyers should be assigned, and many counties ask lawyers to sign contracts that set no limit on the number of cases courts can assign them.
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courts → have → them
At least 250 people have languished in prison for five years or longer while waiting for their lawyers to act.
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lawyers → languish → years
- Unlike some other states, such as North Carolina and New York, Pennsylvania requires no specific training, experience or qualifications for appointed post-trial lawyers, and it holds them to few standards.
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it → require → standards
Lawyers are not required to speak to their clients or take other basic investigative steps before withdrawing from cases by writing no-merit letters.
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Lawyers → require → letters
- Pennsylvania, which lags behind almost every other state in funding legal defense for poor people, known as indigent defense, dedicates no money for post-trial work.
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which → lag → work
Instead, it leaves it up to each individual county to set pay rates.
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it → leave → rates
A majority of county court systems use flat-rate fee structures that some other states ban.
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states → use → that
While almost every county in the state has a public defender office, most post-conviction cases are handled by private lawyers who are paid hourly, by the case or by the year and work with little to no supervision.
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who → have → supervision
Our review of court records found pay as low as $500 per case and delays as long as 19 years without a single court filing.
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review → find → filing
In some counties, contracted lawyers’ backlogs spanned dozens of cases.
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backlogs → contract → cases
In Chester County, an affluent region west of Philadelphia, a lawyer left cases untouched for as long as two years before the county ended his contract last fall.
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county → leave → contract
Delaware County, where O’Neal was convicted, relies on a group of part-time lawyers to handle most of its post-trial matters.
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O’Neal → convict → matters
One is Galloway, who has handled 20 or 30 post-trial cases per year for the county in addition to running his own law practice and, for a time, holding local elected office.
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who → handle → office
Galloway said that his ethical obligation to confidentiality prevented him from commenting on O’Neal’s case.
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obligation → say → case
Judge George A. Pagano, who granted him 41 extensions on O’Neal’s case, declined to comment.
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who → grant → case
In the years Galloway was on the case, O’Neal wrote him dozens of letters from state prison, proposing legal arguments and sending leads to investigate.
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O’Neal → write → leads
“It is a daunting and exhausting task to navigate this legal process and be heard,” O’Neal said in an interview.
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O’Neal → navigate → interview
“We at times even have to fight the attorneys who are supposed to represent us.”
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who → have → us
…and 95 more, not listed.
The Aporia
