Missing a court deadline is every litigator's nightmare. However, the stakes were rather higher than usual for Sullivan & Cromwell when it missed a court appeal date in a death penalty case.
Lawyers from the firm agreed to represent Alabama death row inmate Cory R. Maples on a pro bono basis. Maples - who has been on death row for over a decade - was appealing his sentence. As Alabama is the only US state that does not provide legal representation to all its impoverished death row inmates, he was no doubt grateful for Sullivan & Cromwell's assistance.
However any such gratitude will have evaporated when urgent papers sent by the court to the firm's New York office were returned unopened with "Return to Sender - Left Firm" stamped on the front - missing a vital deadline for Maple's appeal. Other papers were sent back marked "Return to Sender - Attempted not known" (sic), the New York Times reports .
It transpires that the associates dealing with the case had both left the firm, and the firm had not arranged for the papers to be passed on to anyone else. Unfortunately, the documents contained a 42 day deadline to appeal its decision against Maples and by the time firm was alerted to the mistake - by Maple's mother - this had expired.
The firm has since been trying to persuade the court that Maples should not be executed because of its mistakes. So far without any luck.
In something of a last ditch effort, S&C has enlisted the services of a former US Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre to file a Supreme Court petition on Maples' behalf. And there may be hope in the form of a precedent cited in the petition, where sending a letter - which was returned unopened - was founded to be insufficient notice where "...the subject matter of the letter concerns such an important and irreversible prospect as the loss of a house."
Let's hope the judge in Alabama sees the loss of a life as more important than the loss of a house.
Tip Off ROF
Lawyers from the firm agreed to represent Alabama death row inmate Cory R. Maples on a pro bono basis. Maples - who has been on death row for over a decade - was appealing his sentence. As Alabama is the only US state that does not provide legal representation to all its impoverished death row inmates, he was no doubt grateful for Sullivan & Cromwell's assistance.
However any such gratitude will have evaporated when urgent papers sent by the court to the firm's New York office were returned unopened with "Return to Sender - Left Firm" stamped on the front - missing a vital deadline for Maple's appeal. Other papers were sent back marked "Return to Sender - Attempted not known" (sic), the New York Times reports .
It transpires that the associates dealing with the case had both left the firm, and the firm had not arranged for the papers to be passed on to anyone else. Unfortunately, the documents contained a 42 day deadline to appeal its decision against Maples and by the time firm was alerted to the mistake - by Maple's mother - this had expired.
 |
All return to sender stamps confiscated from Sullivan & Cromwell's mailroom |
The firm has since been trying to persuade the court that Maples should not be executed because of its mistakes. So far without any luck.
In something of a last ditch effort, S&C has enlisted the services of a former US Solicitor General Gregory G. Garre to file a Supreme Court petition on Maples' behalf. And there may be hope in the form of a precedent cited in the petition, where sending a letter - which was returned unopened - was founded to be insufficient notice where "...the subject matter of the letter concerns such an important and irreversible prospect as the loss of a house."
Let's hope the judge in Alabama sees the loss of a life as more important than the loss of a house.