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How Not to Correct Appellate Error
Mike Cernovich of Crime and Federalism posts here about recent appellate error -- committed by an attorney, not the judges. Attorney Kevin Carlucci filed a notice of appeal in a criminal case and learned from the court that the notice was defective. Here's what happened next:
When the District Court notified him of a possible error, however, Carelock’s counsel acknowledged that he took no immediate action that corrected the problem. He stated that upon receiving notification of an error from the Court, he reviewed a printout copy of the notice of appeal (the one that bore Carelock’s name and information) and concluded that there was nothing wrong. At this time, Carelock’s counsel neglected to review the document that he had actually electronically filed with the District Court.
According to Cernovich, Carlucci's mistake was fairly easy to make, the equivalent of a typo. Apparently, he filed the cover sheet from another case with the court. But Carlucci didn't fix the error until 90 days later, when it was too late -- and too bad for the client, whose appeal was apparently dismissed.
Cernovich's lesson: Always listen to the clerk, before a tiny mistake causes big problems.
Posted by Carolyn Elefant on August 21, 2006 at 05:19 PM | Permalink
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