Growing Number of Inmates Turning to Post-Conviction Relief


	Print or Email This Page Growing Number of Inmates Turning to Post-Conviction Relief Sept. 10, 2006 Newsday (By the Associated Press) NEWARK, N.J. (AP) _ An increasing number of the state's inmates are fighting their sentences through post-conviction relief, with the number of cases growing 46 percent over the past four years, court statistics show. Post-conviction relief filings, which inmates can only resort to after their appeals have been exhausted, stood at 762 for the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to court statistics. The process, which is different from appeals because it is a new case instead of a continuation, allows matters that couldn't be included in an appeal to be reintroduced. John Harchar, a 46-year-old Edison man, spent seven years in prison fighting his robbery conviction, but it was only his post-conviction relief case that helped him. His conviction was thrown out after he proved his original attorney didn't provide the jury with a picture of him with short hair. The picture would have shown that he, unlike the long-haired robber, had a short cut just a few weeks before the crime. The number of post-conviction cases, which have more than doubled since a 1992 state Supreme Court ruling required attorneys to bring whatever claims their clients want in these cases, doesn't seem to be affected by its success rate. The state Attorney General's Office says it's fallen from 11.4 percent in 1991 to just 7 percent in 2005. Some say the system is only adding stress to courts that are already overloaded. In May, Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Simon Rosenbach asked the state Supreme Court to change the post-conviction relief process. "The number of applications has skyrocketed, the length of time that is required for disposition has skyrocketed, the number of lawyers who must defend their baselessly impugned reputations and who are inconvenienced by testifying has skyrocketed, and the amount of courtroom time that is required for resolution of these cases has skyrocketed," Rosenbach wrote. Rosenbach argued that the timeframe to file for post-conviction relief _ five years following a conviction after all direct appeals have been exhausted _ should be shortened. Since the most common claim made in these cases is that a defense attorney's mistake denied an inmate's rights, such arguments should be allowed during the direct appeals process when memories are fresh, Rosenbach said. The Supreme Court essentially upheld the process in July by requiring lawyers to include all of a defendant's claims, at least by referencing them, for the relief filing judge to consider. With mandatory minimum terms and other crime measures that lead to longer sentences, the number of post-conviction relief cases may continue to increase, legal experts believe. Longer sentences leave inmates with "more time to do more applications," Morris County Assistant Prosecutor John McNamara Jr. told The Sunday Star-Ledger of Newark. In addition, the state Office of Public Defender, which handles the majority of post-conviction relief cases, said it's recently seen an increase in cases from foreign-born felons who are realizing they could be deported for their crimes and are fighting their convictions to avoid it.
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