Lawyer Sues Ex-Mistress` Two Criminal

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Lawyer Sues Ex-Mistress’ Two Criminal-Defense Attorneys
by BRENDA SAPINO JEFFREYS
bjeffreys@alm.com
@brendasjeffreys
Bellaire lawyer Jeffrey Stern, who at one time faced
two charges of solicitation of capital murder of his wife,
filed a malicious prosecution suit on March 8 against two
Houston attorneys. The defendant-lawyers represented
Michelle Gaiser, who has pleaded guilty to solicitation of
capital murder in the case.
Stern alleges that Gaiser’s criminal-defense attorneys
James Stafford and Deborah Keyser, partners in Stafford
Keyser Bromberg of Houston, provided information to
Harris County Assistant District Attorney Carolyn Allen
“in an attempt to further prosecute” him. Stern alleges
Stafford and Keyser, who are married, were friends with
Allen.
He also alleges that Allen, who prosecuted him and
Gaiser and is not named as a defendant in the suit, failed
to provide his defense team with Brady material before a
trial setting in his case.
“All during this time, from Jeff Stern’s arrest, until
his case was ultimately dismissed, Mr. Stafford and Ms.
Keyser were providing false information to Ms. Allen to
prosecute Jeff Stern,” Stern alleges in the petition in Jeffrey
Stern v. James Stafford, et al.
se e L a w y e r, p a g e 14
Bill Calls for
Affirmance If Appellate
Courts Miss Deadlines
by ANGELA MORRIS
amorris@alm.com
@AMorrisReports
se e Wh o, p a g e 13
se e Bi l l , p a g e 15
tim roller
That has lawyers talking about
several Texans the White House
may nominate to sit on the federal appeals court serving Texas,
Louisiana and Mississippi.
Currently, there are two vacancies on the 17-member court des-
Just last month, the Texas Supreme
Court issued rules governing expedited
actions, which caused consternation for
many Texas trial lawyers. Now, a bill would
require the high court to create rules for
expedited appeals.
House Bill 3032 by Rep. Ana Hernandez
Luna, D-Houston, directs the high court to
adopt rules for “the prompt, efficient, and
cost-effective resolution of an appeal in a
civil action.”
Chief Justice Wallace Jefferson, 4th
Court of Appeals Chief Justice Catherine
Stone and several appellate lawyers voice
concerns about the bill, which sets deadlines
for appeals and requires appellate courts
that miss the deadlines to uphold automatically lower-court decisions.
Jefferson says it’s “disturbing” to require
an appellate court to affirm a lower-court ruling arbitrarily, asking what would happen in
a case that calls for reversal on the merits.
Hernandez Luna of Carrigan McCloskey
& Roberson in Houston did not return two
telephone calls or a Facebook message
seeking comment.
Carlos Salinas, who lobbied for the bill
on behalf of the Alliance for Texas Families,
a nonprofit advocacy group for middleand low-income families, asks, “Why can’t
Texans expect shorter appeals? This is
something, obviously, the Legislature took
on last session: getting more prompt resolu-
Who Will
Fill 5th
Circuit
Vacancies?
>INSIDE
>>>>>
by JOHN COUNCIL
jcouncil@alm.com
@john_council
While President Barack Obama
has appointed six U.S. district court
judges in Texas, he has yet to place a
jurist from the Lone Star State on the
5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Three Texas law schools
move up in rank
Tour of all Texas courthouses
concludes with wedding
Family Law: Know
your liability risks
4
6
24
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March 18, 2013
TEXAS LAWYER
15
Bill Calls for Affirmance If Appellate Courts Miss Deadlines
c o n t i n u e d f r o m p a ge 1
tion to disputes.”
Salinas adds, “Folks with less means
find it more difficult to wait it out, the appellate process. We think this is good law. It’s
good for both sides. The prompt resolution
benefits everybody.”
The bill says the rules would apply to all
courts of appeals and
the Supreme Court.
The rules would have
to set deadlines for
an appeal from “the
date a party perfects
the appeal” to the “full
and final disposition.”
Courts would have
one year for a regu- Chief Justice
lar appeal, and three Wallace Jefferson
months for expedited and interlocutory
appeals.
Among other things, the bill says if an
appellate court failed to dispose of a case in
those time periods, the rules would have to
“establish a procedure to uphold, without
opinion, a lower court’s judgment or order.”
Jefferson says he would be “concerned”
because sometimes appellate courts experience “turnover on the bench,” which always
slows down cases. Some cases just take
longer to decide, adds Jefferson.
He notes that, two years ago, the
Supreme Court carried over just four cases
on its docket from the previous term.
“The cases carried over have gone
down dramatically because of technology
improvements and stability on the court,”
says Jefferson, adding about HB 3032, “This
sort of thing may be a solution in search of
a nonexistent problem.”
According to the January 2013 Annual
Statistical Report for the Texas Judiciary,
in fiscal year 2012, the Supreme Court’s
average time for all cases from filing to
disposition was 189 days. Active cases were
pending an average of 170 days. It took an
average of 232 days from the date of an oral
argument to disposition. The average time
from granting a petition, to hearing an oral
argument, was 109 days.
In fiscal year 2012, according to the
report, the intermediate appellate courts’
average time from filing to disposition was
7.9 months. The average time from submission to disposition was 1.6 months.
Stone says she thinks it’s “intimidating”
to impose an “artificial timeline” for appellate
courts to decide cases.
“I don’t believe there’s any statewide
problem with cases languishing in the
courts of appeals. . . . On the whole, there are
very few cases that pend for very long,” adds
Stone, chairwoman of the Texas Council of
Chief Justices. The council includes the 14
intermediate appellate courts’ chief justices,
who discuss policy and budgetary issues.
But, if the Legislature decided to accelerate appeals, the courts would need funding
for additional judges and staff, she says.
Tick Tock
Austin appellate solo Don Cruse says
he understands the desire to make appeals
faster, but he opposes the proposal to set
a “clock” for an appellate court to decide a
case. He notes that it can take five months
or more for an appellate court to receive
a trial record and the briefs for an appeal.
The court may still want to hear an oral
argument, and it needs time to write its
opinion.
“I feel like some aspects of the process
could be accelerated, but I’d be against
any limits on how long they think about
our cases,” explains Cruse, author of The
Supreme Court of Texas Blog. “I don’t
think any type of clock like that is going
to ultimately be helpful.”
Smith Law Group shareholder D. Todd
Smith questions whether a case would
have to finish both the intermediate and
high-court appellate processes within the
one-year deadline. If so, the time frame
would be “impractical,” he says.
Smith adds that he sees “serious due
process concerns” with requiring courts
that “don’t decide cases quick enough” to
affirm the lower courts’ judgments.
“It raises constitutional issues that
would have to be settled through further
litigation,” says Smith.
Jason Steed, associate with Akin Gump
Strauss Hauer & Feld in Austin, says that,
in general, it’s a good idea to try to speed
up appeals. But the provision requiring
the upholding of lower-court judgments
is unfair to clients.
“You’ve paid for that appeal and waited.
Then you lose for no meritorious reason?
You lose just because the court was slow;
that’s terrible,” says Steed.
Texans for Lawsuit Reform spokeswoman Sherry Sylvester writes in an
email that TLR hasn’t “carefully analyzed”
the bill yet.
“[W]e believe the current Texas timetable for appeals is workable and fair and
that a proponent of changing the current
structure bears the burden of persuasion,”
writes Sylvester.
Brad Parker, president of the Texas
Trial Lawyers Association, says he doesn’t
have a position on the bill but he can see
“both sides.” It’s frustrating for a case to
“languish” in an appellate court, but sometimes courts hold cases for good reasons,
like when an opinion in a similar case is
likely to resolve the issues in others.
“It’s a great conversation starter and
something that needs to be talked about,”
he said.
Salinas says the bill gives “flexibility”
so the high court can implement the
rules to enable quicker appeals, while still
ensuring “just rulings” and “good holdings.” Maybe there could be exceptions
for cases that take longer, he says.
“I think bringing the Supreme Court
in and getting their thoughts on how to
speed up the appellate process would be
a very constructive thing,” says Salinas.
He adds, “At the end of the day, if there
is a workable solution to get through this,
and I suspect there is, if everyone comes
to the table and has this discussion, I think
that’s what we — the Alliance for Texas
Families — would like to see.”
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