Court rules state need not fund dead inmates’ appeals

Taxpayers will not have to foot the legal bill for appeals by inmates who die except in narrow circumstances, the state Court of Appeals has ruled.

The decision comes in the case of Christopher Harrison Devlin, a 57-year-old trucker who was convicted of killing a man and sentenced to life in prison. His attorneys appealed, but Devlin killed himself in the Spokane County Jail in September 2010, before the case was decided.

Devlin’s sister, Leslee Devlin, had herself appointed trustee of his estate and, with the help of his public defender, moved forward with the appeal in hopes of clearing his name. They argued the state should continue to fund the appeal because Devlin died indigent.

However, in a ruling issued Thursday, a three-judge panel in Division III of the Court of Appeals said state law requires Leslee Devlin to reapply for indigent status on behalf of Devlin’s estate. Even if the court finds the estate destitute, the court found Devlin must then show “the issues on appeal have probable merit.”

Efforts to contact Leslee Devlin, who lives in New York, were unsuccessful.

For the past 90 years, under common law, convictions of inmates who died in custody while their cases were on appeal were dismissed, along with most financial obligations stemming from the conviction. The idea behind the practice was “the principle that criminal punishment is designed to punish the offender, not the defendant’s heirs or beneficiaries,” the court wrote.

In 2006, the state Supreme Court found the common-law rule failed to take into account the more modern practice of ordering restitution for crime victims. It said dead inmates can appeal their convictions, and their estates can obtain relief from some fines and penalties, but the conviction must stand in order to ensure that victims can obtain restitution.

However, the court did say a “substitute” can pursue a deceased convict’s appeal but must do so at their own expense. If they claim indigency themselves, the trial court must make a separate finding saying so. The indigency of the convict cannot transfer to a substitute, the court ruled.

And even if the substitute is determined to be indigent, that does not mean the state will foot the bill for the appeal. The wording of Washington’s law dealing with indigent defense says a publicly funded lawyer is available only to an “adult offender” – not their heirs or substitutes.

“Funding for public defense is not limitless,” Chief Judge Teresa Kulik wrote in Thursday’s ruling. “Public policy warrants careful weighing of the rights protected and the potential for prejudice against the costs of public funding when a criminal appeal continues beyond the death of the offender.”

Still, in specific cases, public funding of a dead man’s appeal could occur if the Supreme Court finds the issues have merit.

While Devlin was on trial in May 2008 for assaulting 52-year-old Daniel Heily, he killed Heily just before the victim was scheduled to testify. Prosecutors sought the death penalty, but a judge took the death sentence off the table after ruling prosecutors had mismanaged the case, according to The Spokesman-Review.

A jury found Devlin guilty of aggravated first-degree murder, and on Sept. 16, 2010, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Devlin’s lawyers filed an appeal within hours of the sentencing.

On the morning of Sept. 20, Devlin was found dead in his jail cell.

A death certificate revealed Devlin ingested a fatal amount of antidepressants, which investigators believe he obtained from another inmate.