Lawyer’s Bad Advice About Plea Gets Defendant Federal Relief

A lawyer provided ineffective assistance of counsel when he told a client facing life without parole in prison for aiding and abetting murder that he didn’t need a plea deal, the Sixth Circuit said in a split decision.

Marvin Barnett’s egregious misunderstanding of the law, coupled with his determination that Curtis Byrd go to trial, was the root of the problem, the opinion by Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey said.

The district court was directed to grant Byrd federal relief unless “state court proceedings consistent with this opinion are reopened within 180 days,” it said.

Byrd and his girlfriend, Charletta Atkinson, ...