A man freed after 14 years on death row for a murder he always claimed he did not commit can sue over the free, but allegedly shoddy, legal help he got at trial.
The Supreme Court refused Monday to intervene in the suit filed by a Nevada man who claims an inexperienced public defender did next to nothing to help him avoid conviction and a death sentence in 1982.
Roberto Miranda was freed in 1996, after a judge found that the trial attorney had committed glaring errors.
The suit alleges that Miranda's public defender, Thomas Rigsby, did virtually nothing to defend him after Miranda failed a lie detector test administered to him by the PD's office. The suit named Rigsby, former Clark County chief public defender Morgan Harris and the county itself.
"A federal judge threw out the suit, and Miranda appealed to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel of the San Francisco-based court first ruled against Miranda, but the court took the unusual step of rehearing the case. A divided 11-judge panel ruled earlier this year that Miranda can sue Harris and the county, but not Rigsby." Now the Supreme Court has let that ruling stand.
The AP has the story here via CNN.