The Man Everyone Forgot.

MayorBob.

Posted to Legal on Wed Sep 03, 2008 at 12:48:18 PM EST (promoted by port1080). RSS.

Joseph Shepard could be a candidate for poster child for the Sixth Amendment Society, should such a society ever be formed. He's been sitting in a jail cell in Jennings, Missouri waiting to have his drug case resolved in court. He's been waiting for almost two years, most of it spent in his cell 23 hours out of each 24 hour day. He's been forgotten by the system.

The Sixth Amendment guarantees "the right to a speedy and public trial." Shepard would seem to be having his Sixth Amendment rights violated by the system which arrested him and forgot about him and an attorney who might be out of his league representing him. His charges involve possession of meth which was found in his vehicle during a traffic stop. His hometown is Potosi, about 100 miles from his jail cell in Jennings. Shepard has been held without bail since his arrest. According to the federal prosecutor, Catherine Hanaway, her office was unaware of what had happened to Shepard until they began negotiating a plea bargain with Shepard's lawyer, Michael P. Kelly:

"As best I can ascertain, (the judge) issued an order saying if the defense complied with certain conditions, the defendant would be bonded out. And no response was ever made to that order."

Judge Frederick Buckles, the presiding judge, would only say "somehow it just slipped through the cracks." According to Hanaway, she met with Kelly and offered the terms of a plea bargain for Shepard. Buckles issued an order throwing out evidence collected two years ago when Shepard was arrested, saying if the deal was okayed by Shepard, he could be bonded out. According to Shepard, the last time he spoke to Kelly he understood a deal was being worked out. According to the prosecutor and the court, Kelly never responded to the offer. Hanaway says, at this point, "I am very concerned about his lawyer's performance." Michael Kelly isn't responding to calls or inquiries and about the only thing that can be ascertained about him is that his expertise is in personal injury law, not criminal law.

According to the family, Kelly told them that Shepard had pleaded guilty to the meth charges and was about to get out. They claim he also told them that Shepard told him to urge them not to travel four hours round trip "for just a 20 minute visit." The case has effectively been lifted from the hands of Hanaway, Buckles and Kelly, as Chief US District Judge Carol Jackson has scheduled a status hearing on this case. The family plans on attending that hearing.