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| Ohio riot inmate asks court to overturn murder conviction |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 03/12/2001 |
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An inmate identified as a ringleader in the 1993 Lucasville prison riot asked the Ohio Supreme Court recently to overturn the verdicts of guilt against him in connection with the disturbance. The inmate, Carlos Sanders, said his lawyers lacked the time and money to properly defend him. Sanders, who changed his name to Siddique Abdullah Hasan in prison, was convicted in 1996 on 15 charges including the murders of a prisoner and an officer, as well as several assault and kidnapping charges. He was sentenced to death. From the time Hasan was charged in 1994 until his trial, he had three sets of attorneys, Kelly Culshaw of the Ohio Public Defender Office told the court. One of the lawyers said he would have to mortgage his house to continue representing Hasan, she said. Timothy A. Smith, who was appointed as Hasan's lead attorney two months before the trial, was not prepared for the huge volume of work, Culshaw said. Culshaw said underpaid defense attorneys were overwhelmed by a case involving 407 potential witnesses, 65,000 hours of investigation and several videotapes and audio tapes. She also said the prosecution wouldn't provide certain pieces of evidence, including complete tapes of negotiations between police and prisoners. Justice Alice Robie Resnick questioned why low attorneys' fees should constitute a trial error that would cause Hasan's convictions to be overturned. Culshaw said the lawyers weren't mercenaries, but instead were concerned that they were 'being asked basically to subsidize the prosecution of their client.'' William Breyer, an assistant Hamilton County prosecutor, said defense lawyers had been working on the case for months before Smith became Sanders' lead attorney. Smith, now a lawyer in private practice in Cincinnati, said he believed he could have prepared for the case if he had been given more resources -- such as a full-time law clerk -- that he thought he'd been promised. A decision is expected in the spring. |
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