Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:
Steve Palmer here. It is that time for another segment of What's the Appeal. And the idea of this segment is I do a ton of appellate work. Check us out at palmerlegaldefense.com. But I do a lot of appellate work after people are convicted of crimes, and they wanna challenge that in the court of appeals. And I get lots of questions, and I thought, well, you know what? I'll just answer them right here and sort of take care of the the basic in general and some of the specific questions I get too. This one and and, folks, most of these are real questions. These are questions that I either get online here at my podcast or, I get upstairs on the phone, and this is one of those.
Steve Palmer [00:00:32]:
I had a call recently from, a client's family, and they said they wanna do a post conviction petition here in Ohio. And, you know, it it it got me thinking, because the first question I always ask when somebody calls for a post conviction petition or even appeal is, alright. When was the conviction? When did the case end? When was the client found guilty or plead guilty in front of a judge or found guilty by a jury? Because the deadlines matter. And here's here's what, we're fortunate in this call that I got recently. But here's what here's what I always worry about. A lot and here's what you gotta be careful when you're talking to appellate lawyers, say you've just been convicted and you've you're looking for an appeal. Here's where you have to be careful. Be mindful of what you're asking for.
Steve Palmer [00:01:17]:
If you pick up the phone and call a lawyer and you're asking for an appeal, most lawyers will do something called a direct appeal. That is we I've talked about it before. Check it out. A direct appeal is where you just go right from your conviction, and you're gonna go to the court of appeals and challenge, what happened on the record. This client I'm talking about called about a post conviction petition. And the reason you gotta be careful is if a lawyer says, yeah, I'll do your direct appeal, and they don't mention post conviction, you run the risk of missing a deadline. And the deadline here in Ohio is so bizarre. The post conviction petition deadline is starts one year from the date that the transcript of the trial is filed in the court of appeals on the direct appeal.
Steve Palmer [00:02:00]:
So remember, I talk about ladders. Direct appeal ladder over here, post conviction ladder over here. The direct appeal, you ask for the transcript because you need that for the appeal. It gets filed, before you submit your appellate brief. Right then and there, you've got one year to start climbing this post conviction ladder. And, also and check out the old videos. But over here in post conviction, you can raise stuff that is off the record. So if there's an expert witness that you think would have helped, but the attorney at trial didn't call an expert or consult with experts.
Steve Palmer [00:02:30]:
If there's a new witness, if there's something, that's not in the record that proves either ineffective assistance accounts or some other constitutional violation. You have to do it over here. You can't do it here. So I have cases where there's lots of lawyers who they get sort of about post conviction work. They don't like it because it's confusing. It's not, you know, it's not, mainstream stuff, and there's only a few of us that that really dig into it and actually do it. So a lot of lawyers will say, I'll do your appeal, but they don't ever talk to you about post conviction. And then I get a call, a year and a half later after the transcript has been filed, and people are saying, look.
Steve Palmer [00:03:07]:
We just got the decision on the appeal, on the direct appeal. Now we wanna do a post conviction because this client is in prison, and somebody said you should do post conviction. And I I ask them about the timeline, and it's too late. So I make it a point. Somebody calls me about a direct appeal. The first thing I tell them is, look. We got two ladders. I I keep talking about ladders.
Steve Palmer [00:03:26]:
We got two ladders to climb. One is the direct appeal, and that's the one right in front of us. But a short second, right right next to it or a little bit behind it is this post conviction ladder, and we gotta be mindful of it. Here's why. If there's a let's say, they take the example I already gave. If there's an expert witness that was needed, and I'm working on a case right now where this is the case, There is a medical expert that was needed. There's a psychological expert that was needed. There's a DNA expert that was needed, and there's a cell phone forensics expert that was needed.
Steve Palmer [00:03:53]:
None of these experts testified at trial. The record doesn't reflect any of it. I can't raise those issues on direct appeal. But I tell you what, I know enough to know that if I don't get started on getting experts gathered up and ready to go, I'm gonna run out of time because it takes a long time to get to find good experts. They're backed up. I immediately sent the case file off to all these experts, got got, reports and letters and affidavits. So after my direct appeal or when I had the time, I I began working on the post conviction. I easily met the deadline, and we got it done.
Steve Palmer [00:04:28]:
But you can easily envision a world where a lawyer a direct appeal lawyer and a client who doesn't quite understand that, it's not both, doesn't even mention post conviction, and you end up past a deadline. And I gotta tell you that as I've said time and time again, one thing that kills the appellate ladders is missing a deadline. It's like, maybe maybe the analogy would be there's rungs missing in your ladder and you can't get up. And that's what happens if when you get to federal court and you're looking back, the federal court say, look, you skipped some rungs. We can't help you up here. Anyway, what's the appeal? If you've got questions you want me to cover, great. I'll do it. But I'll keep bringing up these topics because I get enough of them in my normal practice.
Steve Palmer [00:05:08]:
If you happen to need an appeal, Palmer Legal Defense. Look me up at palmerlegaldefense.com. I am more than happy to help or give you a consultation. Check us out. Lawyer Talk off the record on the air till now.