A lawyer on death row makes a blunder. Should his client pay the price?

Joseph Gamboa, a death row inmate in Texas, says his court-appointed attorney has denied him the opportunity to challenge his murder conviction in federal court. The court records show, among other things, that the lawyer ignored evidence provided by Mr. Gamboa, filed a habeas corpus petition that still bore the name of a previous client, and submitted a letter admitting his client should lose.

The Supreme Court does things to consider Friday whether Mr. Gamboa's case should be heard. If his attorney had not filed anything and simply abandoned him, he would most likely get another chance to argue his case.

The question in Mr. Gamboa's appeal is whether worthless legal work requires the same response.

In a letter from the Supreme CourtKen Paxton, Texas' attorney general, said a client should “bear the costs of his federal attorney's negligence.” But that is indeed the general rule some have wondered whether it makes sense if the lawyer is appointed by a judge and not hired by a client.

Mr. Gamboa was sentenced to death in 2007 for two murders during a robbery at a San Antonio bar. He maintains his innocence.

The attorney, John J. Ritenour Jr., visited his client once before filing the habeas petition. Mr. Gamboa brought documents to the meeting that appeared to show that prosecutors had withheld evidence indicating that another man had committed the killings, a potentially strong claim.

Mr Ritenour did not take the documents with him. Instead, Mr. Gamboa said an affidavit“Mr. Ritenour told me that he had read the court brief in my case and believed that I was guilty.”

Nearly a year later, Mr. Ritenour filed the petition, which was largely copied from an earlier petition, repeating typographical and grammatical errors. It still had the name of another customer on it, Obie Weathers. It was not signed by Mr Gamboa, even though that was a legal requirement, and it contained none of the arguments Mr Gamboa had asked him to make.

After state attorneys gave the petition short shrift, Mr. Ritenour filed an extraordinary response brief that amounted to surrender.

“After thorough investigation and reflection,” he wrote, “the petitioner concedes that his argument on each of his claims is barred by currently existing adversely decided precedent.”

Mr. Ritenour did not respond to requests for comment on the claims in Mr. Gamboa's Supreme Court letter, including that he had abandoned his client. But he filed a report an affidavit in 2016 that seemed to concede the most important points.

“I did not consult Mr. Gamboa regarding the issues I included and excluded from the petition, nor the contents of the response letter,” he wrote. “Unable to find a non-frivolous way to raise issues that may require evidentiary support, I have again decided not to retain a second attorney, or to engage an investigator or other expert. Once again, I understand that others can and may object to this judgment.”

His own research was limited. Shortly after being appointed by a federal judge, he had a 10-minute phone conversation with an attorney who had represented Mr. Gamboa in state court.

“That was the only investigation into the case that Ritenour ever conducted,” he said Mr Gamboa's petition seeking Supreme Court review.

Court records show that Mr. Ritenour faced difficult times while handling Mr. Gamboa's case, including an ailment that required hospitalization and caring for his wife, who was battling cancer. But he hired no investigator, brought in no experts, and brought in no other attorneys.

In his affidavit, he said he was aware this violated “the standards for federal habeas counsel in a death penalty case.”

A 1996 law, the Anti-Terrorism Act and Effective Death Penalty, set strict limits on challenging capital convictions in federal court. But it did produce a death row inmate, like Justice Elena Kagan wrote in 2020 for seven members of the Supreme Court “a fair opportunity to seek federal habeas relief from his conviction.”

After new lawyers agreed to represent Mr Gamboa, they asked permission to file another petition – a second bite at the apple, which is normally prohibited. Both the judge and the court of appeal rejected the request.

“As troubling as Gamboa's allegations of attorney abandonment may be,” a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit wrote in an unsigned opinionMr. Ritenour had squandered his client's only shot in federal court.

Mr. Gamboa would have been better off if Mr. Ritenour had done nothing. In a few decisions, in 2010 And 2012the Supreme Court allowed death row inmates whose lawyers had completely missed deadlines to attempt to file late petitions.

In urging the Supreme Court to refuse review, Mr. Paxton wrote that Mr. Ritenour “continually and capably represented Gambia” and had not, like lawyers in the earlier cases, committed an “act of disappearance.”

Mr Gamboa's new lawyers questioned that claim.

“In the United States,” they wrote, “life should not be so cheap that a man can be executed because his court-appointed attorney abandoned him.”

In his affidavit, Mr. Ritenour said he had been asked by new lawyers to “possibly admit to poor performance.”

But “on reflection,” he wrote, “I concluded that I could not in good conscience do so.” He may have meant “in good conscience,” but that's not what he wrote.