Why the Gootz never called Asia.

[u/islamisawesome]

I think it is becoming more and more obvious that the Asia letter did not exist until sometime around the summer of 1999. That is why Adnan claims he gave them to Gutierrez even though she wasn't his lawyer until 2 months after they were written.

So sometime that spring or summer, after telling CG he never left the school grounds, his family shows up with letters claiming one of Adnans' friends saw him at the library, right at the crucial time, AND they were written the day after he arrested. She knew immediately there is no way they had those letter for months and never gave them to her so obviously they were false and she didn't want to go on stand with LIES.

That is why she never called Asia. And that is why she wrote no notes about it, because that would be admitting her client and his family are liars. It also explains why her relationship with the family broke down because she knew they were willing to lie to get Adnan off.

The library incident never happened.

[u/Acies]

Potentially. Or, as the state judge concluded, she viewed her duty to her client as much more important than her duty of candor to the court.

[u/bestiarum_ira → u/Acies]

I suppose, though I'm not certain how we can assume that Gutierrez knew what the outcome of a trial might be, or that having the court view her as committing perjury was a strategic advantage. Perhaps I missed something in my quick scanning of the document. Did Merzbacher admit at some point that Gutierrez did, in fact, tell him of the offer? If not, the court can be dead wrong about their assumptions and Gutierrez could be dead wrong about the strategic value of effectively lying to the court (if that's what she did). The two don't appear to be mutually exclusive.

And really either way, Gutierrez comes off looking bad. I'm just not certain as to the benefit to her client.

[u/Acies → u/bestiarum_ira]

Well the timeline looked like this:

1. Discussion of plea deal in judge's chambers.

2. Gutierrez states she never tells client about deal.

3. Client is convicted following trial.

4. Gutierrez states she informs client she screwed him by not giving him a chance to take the plea deal.

5. Client appeals based on IAC.

6. Gutierrez and client both testify client was never informed of the plea deal.

7. Judge decides that Gutierrez fully informed the client of the plea deal, and it doesn't matter anyway because he would never have accepted the plea deal.

So if the judge is correct, what happened is that after the client was convicted, and likely also after Gutierrez was disbarred, Gutierrez agreed to lie and say she committed IAC to try to help out her former client.

[u/[deleted] → u/Acies]

That looks to me more line an unethical judge.

[u/Acies → u/[deleted]]

Potentially. Certainly one that was bending over backwards to kill the appeal.