Appellate and Post-Conviction
Seattle, Washington Appellate and Post-Conviction Criminal Defense Attorney
Handling appeals and post-conviction cases allows me to spend more time on purely legal issues than I would if my practice were devoted solely to trials. Reviewing the record from the proceedings in the trial court allows me the opportunity to scrutinize what went wrong, or right, in the trial court. I feel that doing appeals and post-conviction petitions makes me a better trial lawyer, and being a trial lawyer enhances my ability to do appellate and post-conviction work.
In an appeal, an appellate court reviews the record of the pre-trial and trial proceedings for legal errors. The record includes the court file, the court reporter’s transcript, and the evidence and exhibits introduced in the trial court. Information not contained in the record is generally not considered by an appellate court.
A post-conviction petition is the general name for what is called a “collateral attack” on a conviction. In state courts in Washington, the most common type of post-conviction petition is called a personal restraint petition, but there are also habeas corpus petitions and certain new trial motions. In federal court, post-conviction petitions are called habeas corpus petitions. By using a post-conviction petition, a defendant generally can bring evidence before the reviewing court that was not part of the record on appeal, and in this way raise issues that would otherwise not be reviewed.