A question from Death Row: What happened to my lawyers who abandoned me?

That the death penalty is barbaric goes without saying. Equally appalling are certain aspects of the judicial system in America and how the lawyers who "operate" in it conduct themselves.

Just reflect on this case, as reported on PostPolitics, which is headed for the US Supreme Court - in relation to a man on Death Row whose lawyers literally abandoned him. And didn't tell him either!

"Cory R. Maples was not surprised the day he heard that a court had rejected his challenge to his death sentence. “Down here, they’re pretty serious about it,” he said in a phone call from Alabama’s death row.

But the other news left him in “a state of shock”: the two lawyers from the prestigious New York law firm who had agreed to represent him had quit, quite some time before, without so much as a goodbye.

A clerk attempted to notify the lawyers of the court’s action, but the letters were returned unopened; Maples discovered that he had missed the deadline for appealing to the next level.

“I hate to use the word ‘abandonment,’ but that’s the closest I can get to it,” Maples said. “I’m supposed to have these two lawyers from this great firm that have my life in their hands, and now I find out that they’re not even on the case anymore.”

Maples’s case heads to the Supreme Court next week, and once again the justices will be called upon to examine the intricate legal apparatus that has been constructed to ensure that the death penalty in America is carried out fairly.

It comes as questions about capital punishment and the legal process are in the public eye, as illustrated by the outcry over the recent execution of Georgia inmate Troy Davis, who proclaimed his innocence to the end."

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