Court Affirms the Right to Effective Assistance of Legal Counsel

You may not like Jovan Edwards, but it’s hard to argue with the favorable decision that he received from the Court of Appeals in recent days. Edwards pled no contest in 2003 to a series of charges that made him a sex offender and therefore obligated to register on the state’s sex offender website. The only hitch was that his lawyer didn’t tell him that sex offender registration would result if the judge rejected his guilty plea—which the judge did. Having your picture and home and work addresses published on a public website that essentially declares you a dangerous pedophile is not a consequence to be overlooked.

Now the Court of Appeals has set aside Edward’s plea and returned the case to district court saying that the defense counsel’s performance was “deficient”.

Our sources tell us that the Court based it’s ruling partly on another criminal defense case, State v. Paredes, in which the ACLU of New Mexico, represented by attorney and ACLU board member Tova Indritz, provided a critical friend-of-the-court brief. In that case, an immigrant pled guilty to crimes without being told that his plea would permanently deport him from the country. The NM Supreme Court concluded that immigrants must be told “the specific immigration consequences of pleading guilty [to a crime], including whether deportation would be virtually certain...proper advice will allow the defendant to make a knowing and voluntary decision to plead guilty.”

The Court of Appeals ruling in Edwards’ case adds reinforcement to the crucial precedent established in Paredes that “effective assistance of counsel” means thoroughly informing a defendant about the consequences of a decision to plead guilty.

--Peter Simonson, Executive Director