Questioning the competence of irrational lawyer

CHARLES UNGER

How would you like to be represented by a lawyer who was arrested for

committing a serious crime? Do you think you might have concerns

about his competence? Well, the good news is, the U.S. Circuit Court

of Appeals agrees with you.

This is the story of Mohammed Abdulrafi, who was convicted of two

child-molestation- related counts in Santa Clara County back in 1997.

Abdulrafi served an eight-year prison sentence and was subsequently

deported to his country of origin, Pakistan.

Unfortunately for Abdulrafi, his attorney was one Bramlett

Hamilton, a former deputy public defender. Hamilton’s career began

relatively uneventfully, as he graduated from the University of

Stanford Law School in 1992. He worked with a public defender’s

office until 1999. In 2003 he became a suspect in a homicide

investigation, when his mother was found strangled and stabbed to

death. This took place in Michigan, where Ruth Hamilton was a

professor at Michigan State University. In 2003, Bramlett Hamilton

was unemployed and living with his mother, who was allegedly stabbed

with a kitchen knife four times.

At his trial, Bramlett Hamilton was found not guilty by reason of

insanity due to his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

He was then placed in a facility in Michigan for people with

mental illnesses. Those who are found not guilty of a crime by reason

of insanity are not released; they are sent to a locked facility for

those who are mentally ill, and they can be released sometime in the

future if their condition is deemed to be cured.

Bramlett Hamilton will be locked up for the foreseeable future.

Which leads us back to Abdulrafi, who is claiming ineffective

assistance of counsel. It is further alleged that Bramlett Hamilton

turned over paperwork and documents to the prosecution that further

incriminated Abdulrafi, obviously not in his best interests.

A defense attorney cannot turn over privileged- defense

information, and apparently that happened in Abdulrafi’s case. That

which Bramlett Hamilton turned over was quite powerful, and according

to the Court of Appeals, may have been the difference between

Abdulrafi being found guilty or not guilty.

So, if Bramlett Hamilton killed his mother and is locked up in a

psychiatric ward as a result of his behavior in 2003, was he able to

give Abdulrafi a suitable defense in 1997? That is the question.

Apparently, Abdulrafi lost his job at the public defender’s office in

1999. The Santa Clara County Public Defender’s Office, however, will

not say why, indicating that personnel records are kept private. The

public defender’s office has indicated, however, that they will have

to investigate other cases handled by Bramlett Hamilton to see if his

work was substandard.

It doesn’t sound to me as if Abdulrafi was one of our finer

residents. However, it is more important to me that people either be

convicted the right way or acquitted the right way. Abdulrafi was and

is entitled to a fair trial, and he is also entitled to the effective

assistance of counsel.

That’s what our forefathers wanted, and that is the guarantee. If

it is determined that Bramlett Hamilton was not quite all there back

in 1997, I would hope that Abdulrafi gets his new trial.

* CHARLES J. UNGER is a criminal defense attorney in the Glendale

law firm of Flanagan, Unger & Grover, and a therapist at the Foothill

Centre for Personal and Family Growth. He may be reached at (818)

244-8694 or at www.charlie

unger.com.