[blindlaw] Is blindness ever consitter an issue in court

[Daniel McBride]

Bill:

I will take slight issue with one of your points.  The Court's requirement
is to be a fair and neutral magistrate.  I do not believe that the Court has
any obligation to see that a Citizen Accused gets a fair trial.  That is the
burden of defense counsel.

Heck, if it was the duty of a Judge to see that Citizens Accused get a fair
trial, and they actually adhered to their obligation, we wouldn't need
lawyers.

I do not know where you are from, but I can assure you that Texas judges run
roughshod over the Citizen Accused everyday.  And the Texas Courts of
Appeals and Texas Court of Criminal Appeals affirm their convictions with
regularity under the harmless error analysis rule.

Dan McBride
Fort Worth

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Bill Spiry
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2013 7:41 PM
To: 'Blind Law Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Is blindness ever consitter an issue in court

The court's first duty is to ensure that the defendant gets a fair trial. If
accommodation is necessary for an attorney to adequately represent her
client, then I think the court has a duty to provide that reasonable
accommodation. In this case, accommodation might mean permitting the defense
attorney to take time to review and examine documentary evidence such as
photos or diagrams with a sighted assistant to get an effective description
of the images.

A denial by the court to provide a reasonable accommodation to an attorney
where that accommodation is necessary for the attorney to effectively
represent her client argueably could violate defendants rights under the 6th
and 14th amendment.

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of RJ Sandefur
Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 4:06 PM
To: NFBnet Blind Law Mailing List
Subject: [blindlaw] Is blindness ever consitter an issue in court

John Smith is a blind defence aturney. He is defending Mike shafer on murder
1 charges. The state has photos of the defendant at the crime seen. What
should the state do taking into consitteration the defence lawyer is blind
and is unable to see the pictures? RJ
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