Steve Palmer [00:00:00]:

Lawyer Talk Off the Record on the Air. Steve Palmer here again with another Q and A session. This time, or today, we got a question from Sarah, and Sarah's from Ohio. I'm gonna change the names to protect the innocent, maybe really protect the innocent. But, anyway, my nephew, Bob, was convicted of attempted murder and felonious assault in Blank County, Ohio. I took out the county. This was a self defense case. We do not feel like you got a fair trial.

Steve Palmer [00:00:24]:

The judge let the prosecutor do whatever he wanted, and I feel like our attorney wasn't allowed to do anything and didn't really fight for Bob. We appealed the we appealed the conviction, but the Court of Appeals denied our appeal. We don't feel like we can get a fair look at this in Ohio. We want to appeal, to the United States Supreme Court. Is that possible? Great question. And I I love this because it sort of combines a couple of the series I do. One is, like, what's the appeal, and the other is q and a. Let's jump right in.

Steve Palmer [00:00:51]:

The answer in short is no. You can't skip a step and go directly to the US Supreme Court. Here's how this works. You get convicted at trial. And after a trial, if you think that the court made mistakes or if evidence was admitted that shouldn't have been or you tried your lawyer tried to admit evidence and it was, the judge wouldn't let it happen, then you can say, alright. Court of appeals, this is called a direct appeal. There was mistakes at trial. I always use the analogy, like, when my boys would play Monopoly, they'd come to me and say, he cheated.

Steve Palmer [00:01:23]:

We'd open up the rule book, look at the rules, and say, nope. You're not allowed to have two hotels until you have one house or whatever it would be, and, then we go back and fix it. Sometimes it's a do over. You gotta start the game over because it's just too screwed up. Nothing you can do. So the court of appeals here apparently said no. We don't agree. We're gonna affirm the conviction.

Steve Palmer [00:01:41]:

We're not gonna change it. Bob is still convicted. Bob is still facing probably a pretty substantial sentence. She doesn't say here. And now they wanna appeal more, and they're thinking, well, look. Ohio sucks. We're not getting any help here. We wanna just go right to the US Supreme Court.

Steve Palmer [00:01:55]:

And there may be some reason for that. You know, the US Supreme Court I say this is a gun case, for instance, and it involves the second amendment. You know, the US Supreme Court seems interested in that kind of issue. So I can understand why you'd wanna skip skip a step. But, look, I always use the analogy of ladders, and there's appellate ladders. And there's a couple different ones you have to climb before you can just jump to federal court. This is the direct appellate ladder. The next logical step here for Bob is gonna be filing a request in Ohio at the Ohio Supreme Court asking them to review it, asking the Ohio Supreme Court to review it.

Steve Palmer [00:02:27]:

What do I mean by asking them? I've talked about this before, but what it's called is a memorandum in support of jurisdiction, which is fancy lawyer talk way of saying, of describing this. The high supreme court doesn't have to review a case. It doesn't have to actually, look at it and make a decision. And in fact, most often, it doesn't. The highest supreme court is now looking for unlike the court of appeals, which is looking for error correction, we would call it. Like, there's a mistake. We're gonna fix it. The highest supreme court is looking for bigger picture issues.

Steve Palmer [00:02:58]:

What and they're gonna ask questions like, what happened in this case that's gonna apply beyond just this case? Does this have broad reaching impact constitutionally, or is it so significant that it's gonna impact other cases as they come up? And you might imagine a scenario where you have two different counties in Ohio, two different appellate courts with two different decisions on the same topic. Now the Ohio Supreme Court's gonna be very interested because there's a conflict, on a particular legal issue, and they're gonna accept it. If the Ohio Supreme Court accepts it, you go to phase two in the Ohio Supreme Court, which is a merit brief, and that's a detailed legal argument about why we think we should win and why the law should be applied, or interpreted in a certain way. And then you go argue it in the high supreme court. I'm gonna do that in a couple of weeks on an issue, that has gone up all the way to the high supreme court. Only after the highest supreme court decides the case, either decides not to hear the case or decides the case against you, can you then go to the US Supreme Court, and that's called a petition for certiorari, or you can call it some people just say we're gonna we we applied for cert in the US Supreme Court, and that deadline, I think, is ninety days from the date of the denial in the highest supreme court or whatever the highest state court of the land is. You can file a petition for cert and ask the US Supreme Court to review it. But, again, you're just asking them to review it.

Steve Palmer [00:04:19]:

They don't have to. It's a lot like the Ohio process. They're looking for issues. They're not looking to correct a mistake in a particular case most of the time. They're looking for bigger picture stuff, and there are trends in the US Supreme Court. One is with one of which I just talked about. Like, they they went on this several year trend about the second amendment and firearms rights, and, there's an ongoing trend to deal with the right of confrontation and certain issues that are coming up there. So there there are things that those lawyers, who, watch it and practice regularly in the US Supreme Court, they know, and they know what to watch for and when and how to present certain issues to try to get the Supreme Court's attention.

Steve Palmer [00:04:57]:

I have tried several times. You will not see my name, unfortunately, on any oral arguments in the US Supreme Court or any briefs in the US Supreme Court yet. Actually, you'll see my names on a couple petitions for cert, but not any merit briefs. I've not been there yet. But maybe one day, stay tuned and watch. I'm sure I will let everybody know here if if and when that ever happens. But, to the short answer, Sarah, is no. You can't skip a rung on the ladder.

Steve Palmer [00:05:18]:

If you need help with this, give me a shout. Palmer legal defense. Six one four two two four six one four two. Off the record, on the air, q and a style. Till next week.