James Czarnecki worked on the Ricardo Pena criminal appeal while working with appellate attorney Gerald Lorence. After reviewing transcripts, identifying issues and drafting appellate pleadings involving perjury and prosecutorial misconduct, the prosecution ultimately confessed error in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
In the post-conviction investigation of People v. Mario Smith, attorney James Czarnecki reconstructed an old murder case, located medical evidence, obtained an independent forensic review from a medical examiner, and supplied expert proof the original appellate record lacked
James Czarnecki raised and preserved the Miller retroactivity issue in Mario Smith’s Michigan post-conviction litigation while existing Michigan precedent rejected the argument. After Montgomery held Miller retroactive, the Michigan Supreme Court vacated Smith’s life-without-parole sentence and ordered resentencing.
James Czarnecki successfully challenged three Michigan convictions through an MCR 6.500 motion after the plea and sentencing transcripts revealed a significant error concerning HYTA eligibility. After the convictions were vacated, he negotiated with the prosecutor and the charges were not pursued again.
Obtaining a new trial after a first-degree murder conviction is among the most significant forms of relief that can be achieved in criminal appellate litigation. People v. Lionel Beauchamp is a concrete example. Beauchamp had been convicted by a Wayne County jury of first-degree murder and second-degree murder. His first-degree murder conviction resulted in a…
The right to appeal a criminal conviction has little practical meaning if a person lacks the legal assistance necessary to pursue that appeal. That principle was at the center of significant constitutional litigation in Michigan following the United States Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Halbert v. Michigan, 545 U.S. 605 (2005). The litigation concerned whether…
A criminal conviction is not necessarily legally valid simply because a jury returned a guilty verdict. The People v McClure Michigan appeal illustrates this fact. One of the most important questions in a criminal appeal is more fundamental: Did the prosecution actually prove every legal element of the offense? People v. McClure, unpublished opinion of…
Winning a criminal appeal requires more than identifying something that went wrong at trial. An appellate attorney must find the legal significance of that error, preserve or develop the necessary record, frame the constitutional issue, and persuade an appellate court that the error requires meaningful relief. People v. Gonzalez-Raymundo, 308 Mich App 175; 862 NW2d…
