POSTING THE FOLLOWING (LONG!!!!) FOR EASIER REFERENCE, FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN ’S CIVIL SUIT AGAINST NURMI.
LINK TO THE LAWSUIT:
https://drive.google.com/viewerng/vi...s/2547_001.pdf
I. FROM THE COMPLAINT, ON THE CHARGE NURMI CHOSE TO REMAIN AS COUNSEL, AND THAT HE DID SO FOR FINANCIAL GAIN (paraphrased if not in quotes).
#36. Nurmi told MDLR that writing a book on case would be like “winning the lottery,” and would be worth it even if he lost his law license.
#37. Nurmi had a conflict of interest staying on case; he stayed on for financial gain. He was paid $2.5M, plus the $$ he knew he would earn from his book.
#38. He hated the so much he was eager to break confidence & “tell her secrets” for his own financial gain.
#40. Among N’s many lies is the whopper that he was forced to represent the . “This is false.” N had many opportunities to quit, but didn’t; he remained on for his own financial gain.
#41. “Had he revealed (to the court his hatred (for the ) and intent for financial gain” he would have been released.
#42. Nurmi told (unidentified folks) at the time he was willing to stay on if the Court agreed to pay him more than typical contractual rate (($125 ph; he requested and received $225 ph)).
CONTEXT & REALITY:
(From my dissertation in the appeals thread.
)
The decision to charge CMJA with capital murder was made by Maricopa County Attorney Andy Thomas in October 2008. Thomas was elected MCA in 2004.
By 2007, Thomas’s zealousness in seeking the DP, coupled with the fact DP cases in AZ were increasingly taking longer to bring to trial (in part due to lengthier mitigation investigations) had increased the number of pending DP cases in Maricopa County significantly enough for the AZC to consider the trial backlog a system-wide Court crisis.
An Oversight Committee was formed in 2007 to analyze the problem and to suggest reforms. Some components the Committee) and outside sources identified as contributing to the backlog included a shortage of DP- qualified judges and an overly lenient granting of trial continuances.
Outside observers noted that private practice defense attorneys benefitted from the backlog. Desperate to prevent trial postponements from becoming so lengthy as to become an issue for appeals, the Superior Court not infrequently resorted to private defense attorneys to try capital cases, paying the attorneys up to 3x more per hour than their public counterparts.
Reform. On March 5, 2009, Presiding Superior Court Judge Donahoe announced reforms intended to help with the backlog of capital cases.
In other words, the going rate of $125 per hour was because the Court was desperate short of DP qualified attys, and had to hire them out of private practices.
But why was Nurmi paid that extra $100 an hour?
See below (from timelines in my appeals dissertation).
2011 March 8. Minute Entry. 9:10-9:25. All parties are present for a
discussion of Nurmi’s withdrawing from PD’s office. Reps are there from the PD office and from Office of PD Services.
March 9. Defense requests oral argument on Nurmi’s motion to withdraw, scheduled for March 21.
March 11. Minute Entry. Duncan unilaterally appoints 2 counsel (Harrison and Hammond)
to represent the defendant during the hearing on Nurmi’s motion to withdraw.
++March 21. CCMC. 8:46 -9:13. All parties present, 2 attys for CMJA.
Nurmi objects to the Court appointing counsel for defendant. So noted.
Harrison and Hammond address the Court.
Nurmi’s motion to withdraw is denied. Ordered: PD Peterson unacceptable as second chair because he already has a scheduled trial.
March 22. Minute Entry.
Nurmi tries again, a renewed motion to withdraw. Nurmi informs Duncan that following the March 21 hearing the Office of Public Defender had removed the DT’s team mitigation specialist, investigator and paralegal, because they didn’t want a non-employee to be directing staff. Duncan orders the team be restored forthwith, saying the OPD doesn’t have the authority to withdraw staff, and has a professional obligation not to impede the DT’s work.
Then, she denies Nurmi’s motion to withdraw.
April 4. CCMC. All parties and CMJA’s 2 attorneys are present. 8:45-9:02. All about Nurmi.
Duncan rules Nurmi has an ethical obligation to continue representation of his client.
Orders Nurmi be paid 225 per hour to “represent the defendant conflict-free.” He won’t be able to build private practice and adequately try a capital case with an “Imminent, firm and final trial setting.”
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(and... that's why he was paid $100 ph "extra"-- to compensate for the long delay in opening the private practice he had already set up).
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May 8, 2012. Defendant found guilty of premeditated 1st degree murder.
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May, 2012.
Both Nurmi & Wilmott try to withdraw. Denied.
May, 2013. (Nurmi writes that he tried to visit CMJA once in early June, but she refused to see him.
At some point in June CMJA requests Nurmi be replaced, and is denied).
October 14, 2013.
CMJA handwrites a Motion to Change Counsel, asking that Nurmi be fired. (filed same day, executed on October 17).
http://www.cbs5az.com/link/665416/jo...fense-attorney
Summary: Says she hasn’t spoken to Nurmi since May 23, has a trial coming up, “or at least a settlement conference,” and that she isn’t as prepared as she needs to be.
Suggests that she expected her refusal to see Nurmi would force him to withdraw. That her refusal to see him hadn’t led to him trying to communicate with her via someone else on the DT, but that even if he had tried to do so, as she had “advised (JSS)about the ABA guidelines” such communication wouldn’t suffice, and would be a “dangerous form of phone tag.”
Denied.
