A 17-Year-Old and His 'Dangerously Incompetent' Lawyer

Jake Tapper delves into the case of CJ Rice
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 13, 2022 2:10 PM CDT
Updated Oct 16, 2022 7:25 AM CDT
A 17-Year-Old and His 'Dangerously Incompetent' Lawyer'
"Change the details, and [Rice's story] is the story of tens of thousands of poor defendants and the accumulation of large and small injustices that define their lives."   (Getty Images / BrianAJackson)

"How Bad Can a Lawyer Be?" asks the headline of Jake Tapper's November cover story for the Atlantic. In the case of CJ Rice, bad, or "dangerously incompetent," as Tapper puts it. Rice was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison in connection with a Sept. 25, 2011, shooting that injured four people. Rice was 17 at the time. He was also a patient of Dr. Theodore Tapper, Jake Tapper's pediatrician father. Just five days before the shooting, Dr. Tapper had examined Rice, who himself has been shot several times weeks prior while riding his bike. During that visit, Rice winced when moving his body and exited the office "bent over and with short, choppy steps, like an old man." Five days later, the gunman in question "sprinted" away, per witnesses.

"As a doctor, [Dr. Tapper] believes that Rice’s involvement in the crime for which he was convicted was physically impossible." Over the years, the pediatrician worked to try to get Rice's case re-examined; in 2020, Tapper himself started reviewing it. He delves deep into what happened on Sept. 25 and explains the financial distress Rice's court-appointed private lawyer was in, how the way she was paid translated into little time and attention being given to Rice's case, and the missteps that were made as a result—not retrieving Rice's wireless data, not securing alibi statements, not obtaining his hospital records, and on and on. In Tapper's view, there are mountains of reasonable doubt—but "the law provides little recourse for those undermined by a lawyer. The constitutional 'right to counsel' has become an empty guarantee." And as Tapper writes, "Rice’s story is meaningful precisely because it is not unusual." (We encourage you to read the full piece.)

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