How do you handle this situation

You have an appellate client who refused trial defense counsel and now refuses to talk with you about his appeal so you can properly represent him. Point being, you cannot form an attorney-client relationship. You may have been appointed as appellate counsel, but until you talk to the client and he accepts your representation there is no A/C--is there?

We might find out because of this mysterious journal entry at CAAF.

Monday, August 16, 2021 
Miscellaneous Docket - Filing
 
No. 21-0331/MC. In re Jasper Casey. Notice is given that a petition for extraordinary relief in the nature of writ of mandamus and prohibition was filed under Rule 27(a), together with a motion for an emergency stay of the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals order, on this date. Further action on the petition shall be held in abeyance pending the Court's final action on the motion. 

The Google will tell you Casey is a Marine judge advocate. A quick search on the NMCCA website will tell you that he must be assigned to Appellate Defense (Code 45) because his name is on a number of cases. But that is it. The NMCCA website does not have the Order online. This may be an oversight. NMCCA does publish Orders from time to time.

As the Spanish might say, ¿donde esta PACER?

Update (20/08), with some additional questions, and perhaps more to come:

• If you cannot form an A/C with the Appellant, are you required to comply with United States v. Grostefon? (Probably not, the trigger under Grosty is that the Appellant tells you to file it.)
• What would your Bar say about the situation? Do you ask?
• Can you be ordered to represent the Appellant by your supervisor?
• What about the supervisors professional responsibility exposure?
• Can it be a defense in a Bar proceeding that you represented the Appellant under orders of a supervisor?
• How do you answer the Bar complaint from the Appellant who didn't want your representation, you gave it, and he did not want the issues raised?
• How do you answer the Bar complaint when the represent the Appellant, get him a new trial, he gets new charges, he gets more time, and he didn't want that?

Ask CAAFlog Desk