Alaska Employment Law

U S District Judge John Sedwick has approved an increase in budgeted fees for court-appointed counsel for an unusual criminal defendant. Here, Los Angeles attorney Jerald Brainan represented a difficult habeas petitioner, Brock Purviance.

As a review of Mr. Brainin’s supporting papers shows, he performed an extraordinary amount of work for Purviance. This is in part attributable to the remarkably demanding nature of his client. Purviance’s counsel in the underlying criminal case, Sue Ellen Tatter, is a very experienced and very talented public defender. In a hearing on the merits of Purviance’s § 2255 motion, Ms. Tatter characterized Purviance as “one of the most demanding clients she has ever represented. [] She agreed that he wanted to collaborate and contribute on every facet of his defense. [] This court’s own experience of Purviance is entirely consistent with Ms. Tatter’s description. The bottom line is that Purviance is one of those very rare criminal defendants who is very bright and actually capable of discussing and second-guessing everything his lawyer might consider doing. Moreover, he was highly motivated to do so by the severe sentence he faced. Under these circumstances, the court will remove the $14,500 ceiling. However, the court cannot afford Mr. Brainin carte blanche. He was warned that his client did not have leave to demand the expenditure of unlimited amounts of his time. Moreover, counsel is rightly expected to exercise some control over the demands of his clients, even difficult clients like Purviance.

U.S. v. Purviance, 2010 2775309 (D.Alaska July 8, 2010)(footnotes omitted)