Professional Malpractice does my brother have a chance?

[guestposter]

Hello, first let me thank you for your time. I have a complicated case and dont know where to turn I hope you can help. My brother has been sentenced to 20 yrs in fl. Dept. of Corr. I feel had his Pd got an extension for more time due to his client finding family after not seeing one another in 13yrs. Client has extensive mental health history, grew up in foster care, drug addicted mother who came in and out of his life as she plsd. He and I had just found one another and he gave me pwr of atty. I had only had 1month to get all of his medical foster care documents and it was impossible because i had to fax copies of poa then sign.resease forms and wait for copies to be found and mailed to me because some of them were 300pgs. I only had 1 to bring with me to court. Should that lawyer have waited on those document because his defense was based on his mental health childhood?

 

[Michael Wechsler]

I'm sorry to hear about your brother. If the defense attorney knew that there was a good chance that your brother might not have been convicted as a result of your evidence then yes, the attorney should have requested that the court provide the attorney with some time to obtain vital evidence.

But there is an issue here - just because you have a terrible past that affects you does't mean you cannot be convicted of a crime, especially if you know the difference between right and wrong. I don't know what your brother did to receive 20 years, which is a very long sentence.

You will probably need to speak to an attorney to review the information you had to determine whether it would have made any material impact on the case. I don't know whether speaking to anyone in the DA's office will matter, especially if they convicted someone they knew was guilty of a crime. For example, if someone was murdered they will have little sympathy if you're going to bring them evidence that your brother had a hard life. I'm very sorry to hear about this matter but you will need some professional assistance in order to determine whether an appeal would be in order for "ineffective assistance of counsel" meaning that your attorney did not provide an adequate defense.