A Sleeping Lawyer and a Ticket to Death Row
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jul/15/news/mn-53250
“I knew John Benn. I knew he wasn’t competent,” Shaver said in a courthouse interview in late June. The judge said Benn had the appearance of “a heavy drinker. . . . His clothes looked like he slept in them. He was very red-faced; he had protruding veins in his nose and watery red eyes. . . . I can’t imagine anyone hiring him for a serious case.”
So Shaver appointed a second lawyer, Sandy Melamed, to assist Benn.
Melamed had never worked on a capital case before and remained deferential, even though he saw Benn’s limitations.
“After the hearing, West said in an interview that she thought she was going to testify about her discussions with the FBI agent and how Reyna asked her to pull the cases of at least 50 friends and supporters so he could dismiss them outright or have special prosecutors appointed who would dismiss them.
Waco attorney Robert Callahan, who represents Twin Peaks biker William Chance Aikin, and who attended Monday’s 20-minute hearing, said other Twin Peaks attorneys likely will seek to disqualify Reyna from prosecuting their cases based on allegations he made the decision to arrest 177 bikers for political gain.
If bikers like Clendennen, who allege they did nothing wrong at Twin Peaks, can show Reyna ordered the arrests and also has dismissed cases for donors and friends for political gain, they can establish a pattern that Reyna has made himself a witness in the case and should be removed from prosecuting them, Callahan said.”