PART SIX

  ineffective court-appointed attorneys 

A. Trial Attorneys

Robert was represented at trial by two court-appointed attorneys, Anthony Osso and David Cunningham. They are both career, court-appointed lawyers. This means their career is based on helping the Judge and Prosecutors achieve their objectives. The Judge appoints these lawyers in Harris County, unlike other counties where there is a Public Defenders Office. The main difference between the two systems is that attorneys from the Public Defenders Office don’t count on the Judge for their pay check. The simple fact is, if a court-appointed attorney does anything to make the Judge or Prosecutors mad, then they won’t get any more appointments and they won’t get paid.

  Both of Robert’s court-appointed attorneys did a horrible job of representing him at trial. They didn’t speak to key witnesses, and the completely incompetent investigator they hired failed to locate important witnesses. Also, Mr. Anthony Osso was running for a City Council position while supposedly representing Rob. This surely affected his work on Robert’s case in various ways. For one, a person conducting a political campaign doesn’t have the time to spend working diligently on a capital murder trial. And, more importantly, a person running for office in an all Republican Judicial District simply cannot be seen as a lawyer who is attempting to help a person accused of capital murder of a police officer. That would be political suicide.

  Though David Cunningham tried, very unconvincingly, to play the role of someone attempting to help Robert, Anthony Osso was more straightforward. He told Robert, “My life has changed a lot since representing you. I’ve never in twenty years been searched like a criminal before coming to see an inmate until now. I can’t even go to the bathroom without at least two deputies watching my every move!” The deputies intimidation assured that Mr. Osso knew he should try extra hard to help the Judge and Prosecutors.

  In addition to providing unhelpful and damaging representation just as Mr. Osso did, Mr. Cunningham went so far as to lie to witnesses who wanted to help Robert in an attempt to deter them from doing so. Some of his actions may have been provoked by the fact that his wife is an Assistant District Attorney, working for the Prosecutor’s Office. Her boss is Chuck Rosenthal, the head District Attorney who prosecuted Robert. Plus, Mr. Cunningham is good friends with a Court Deputy whom he goes on family vacations with. This same Deputy assaulted Robert while he was handcuffed, waiting to go to the court room during his trial. And this Deputy works in the same court that sentenced Robert to death. As you can surely see, Anthony Osso and David Cunningham were appointed by the Judge to Robert’s case to ensure that he would be unfairly represented.

B. Appeal Attorneys

In Texas, the extremely conservative, all Republican Criminal Court of Appeals (CCA) maintains a list of approved attorneys to handle death penalty appeals and the Trial Judge appoints them on a case by case basis. Janet Morrow and Leslie Ribnik were appointed for Robert’s case. Both of these attorneys handle such a large amount of death penalty appeals that it is completely impossible for them to spend enough time on any individual case. Ms. Morrow filed Robert’s direct appeal. Robert sent her numerous letters, asking questions and attempting to work with her on the appeal. She was unhelpful and simply filed her own appeal without even reviewing it with Robert. Furthermore, Ms. Morrow didn’t even take the time to visit Robert once. The appeal was filed with numerous errors and was denied by the CCA and the Supreme Court refused to review it.

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The trial Judge appointed attorney Leslie Ribnik to file the Application for Post Conviction Write of Habeas Corpus in Robert’s case. This is more commonly known as the Article 11.071 State Writ. The direct appeal focuses primarily on errors contained within the trial record, such as the trial judge making an improper ruling on an objection. The State Writ focuses more on errors outside of the trial record such as ineffective assistance of counsel and other issues. A State Writ attorney is supposed to completely and thoroughly investigate the entire trial and every aspect of the case. Mr. Leslie Ribnik did none of this.

Robert gave Mr. Ribnik a long list of important witnesses to contact. He failed to contact any of them. Robert then asked several people to contact Leslie Ribnik and he reluctantly spoke with them. He was rude, unhelpful, and even went as far as to lie to people about important details of Robert’s case. Mr. Ribnik hired an investigator who did no investigating at all, and didn’t even speak with Robert once. This investigator is a former police officer that was also Johnny Holmes’ lead investigator. Johnny Holmes is the District Attorney that was replaced by Chuck Rosenthal. Yes, Mr. Ribnik hired an investigator who is a former Houston police officer and investigator for the District Attorney’s office!

  After doing absolutely no investigation or work on Robert’s case, Leslie Ribnik filed what can only be described as a pitiful State Habeas Writ. He didn’t review the Writ with Rob, nor did he discuss the issues presented in it with Robert at all. Though, Mr. Ribnik did file an Affidavit with the CCA stating that he did just that.

  Leslie Ribnik only raised two issues in a Writ that was only 29 pages long. That basically amounts to filing blank paperwork! There were at least 20 issues brought to his attention which should have been raised, but he purposely failed to raise them. Mr. Ribnik intentionally filed a damaging and harmful State Habeas Appeal in Robert’s case.

  Leslie Ribnik shouldn’t be working on any death penalty appeal, much less Robert’s appeal. Mr. Ribnik strongly supports capital punishment and he believes that “all evil people need to die.” His support of the death penalty seems to be an article of faith and surely has something to do with political strategy.

  While supposedly working on Robert’s appeal, Leslie Ribnik was running for a Judge seat in Harris County. Every single Judge in the county is pro-death penalty and not supporting capital punishment is unheard of in the Harris County Judiciary. How could Mr. Ribnik represent Robert fairly when running for Judge? How can he fairly assess facts and represent a client on a death penalty case while strongly supporting capital punishment?

Leslie Ribnik and Janet Morrow were purposely appointed by the same court that sentenced Robert to death in order to ensure that the appeals filed for his case would be harmful and damaging. And they did just that. As of July, 2005, Robert’s State Habeas Writ was yet to be ruled on by the CCA. There is only one appeal left after the State Writ, and that is the Federal Habeas Writ. Robert’s only hope is to find a good attorney to file the Federal Writ very soon .