To whom it may concern;
My son is serving a 2.5 year sentence for a probation violation here in Wyoming. I will give more detail if necessary. His Lawyer was going to file for a Sentence Reduction by his November 5th deadline. Unfortunately, his Lawyer, Michael Zwickl died of a heart attack just a few weeks ago. This is a devastating blow to his family, his law office and of course, his clients. As he was the sole practising attorney in his office, we were told to hire another attorney. Our resources are depleted and we cannot possibly find an attorney who would do this Pro Bono. It just seems no one does this any more. My first question is: Can he do this without an attorney based on his circumstances?

The shot in the other leg is that his Sentencing Judge, Judge Skavdahl has resigned. It is my understanding that a request for a Sentence Reduction has to be made to the Sentencing Judge.

This seems absolutely hopeless to attempt and as a family, we are devastated. Is there anything we can do? We are running out of time and need some advice please.

Thank you!

Have you browsed through the information in LawInfo's Free Legal Resource Center to learn more about your issue yet? See: http://www.lawinfo.com/consumer.html and http://resources.lawinfo.com/en/index.html. You can certainly try to speak to a lawyer to determine what legal options may be available. In the meantime, you may be able to learn more on your own. Search the "Free Legal Resources" tab, or browse the Consumer Resources. Good luck.

Dear Moderator;
The answer to your question is yes. The problem is that when the resource asks you to select a State, the State of Wyoming is not on the drop down list. It's as though we do not exist here. We are running out of time and we were hoping someone on this forum could help us. Perhaps we were wrong.

This is an issue that is WAY beyond an internet message board. CAN he do it without an attorney? He can try - while understanding that if the request isn't done correctly - the appeal can be rejected on procedural grounds, or suffer rejection on substantive grounds.

There realistically isn't a way around the fact that he NEEDS an attorney to assist with this if he wants the best chance of success (assuming he doesn't routinely keep up on appellate law issues or browse procedural law in his spare time). He can check with the state bar association to see if they maintain a list of attorneys who may be willing to take his appeal pro-bono, but the reality is that most pro-bono programs are SWAMPED with DUIs and domestic violence cases, many many more than they can possibly help - and cases which are making an initial appearance in court typically take precendent over cases in appellate stage. He can continue to call around and try to convince a private criminal defense attorney to assist with his pleading, but as the time gets nearer, the odds that he'll find one plunge due to the increasing difficulty and time demands on a new attorney to get up to speed on the case enough to do any additional research, interviews, depositions, etc that may be needed to craft the sentence appeal. In other words, if this were my child, I wouldn't put in the time to try to find one at this point - I'd concentrate on how to come up with the money to hire one while there was still time.

If there's a local law school, he might check with them to see if they have a program where students who work under licensed attorneys assist in preparing motions, etc.

__________________
While pointers can be helpful, ultimately the number one lesson in any legal action is: don't take legal advice from books, family, friends, co-workers, police officers, grocery clerks, web sites, or people on legal message boards. The only person who can give YOU legal advice is YOUR attorney.

http://www.aardvarc.org

I appreciate your input and expertise.

I agree. Also, most sole practitioners have a contingency plan set up in case something happens where another attorney will take any of the pending cases.