Lawyer accused of sloppy defense

The child molester's sentence could be halved.
ERIE, Pa. (AP) -- A lawyer who has since become Erie County's chief public defender didn't properly investigate a convicted child molester's whereabouts and missed key alibi evidence that should have resulted in the man's acquittal, a federal magistrate ruled.
U.S. Magistrate Susan Paradise Baxter found that James Tice, 26, who is serving seven to 14 years in state prison for two 1999 convictions for sexually abusing a 9-year-old girl, was the victim of a "manifest injustice" because of the failure by his attorney, Tony Logue. Logue recently was named the county's chief public defender.
The magistrate's ruling isn't binding, but if U.S. District Judge Sean McLaughlin adopts it, one of Tice's convictions could be vacated and his sentence would be cut in half. If that happens, Tice would finish the maximum term in August 2007.
Logue declined comment on the magistrate's decision, which was issued last week, as did Assistant Federal Public Defender Tom Patton, who is representing Tice in his appeal.
Tice's conviction stemmed from allegations that he molested the girl twice in 1997. Tice, then 18, was in juvenile detention at the time. He had court permission to visit two homes on weekends, and he was charged with molesting a girl who lived at one of them.
What happened
But Patton dug up records showing that, at the time of one of the two alleged attacks, Tice was signed out to spend the weekend at the home where the girl didn't live.
Baxter said that under other procedural rules, Tice's appeal should have been barred. But the magistrate found the mistake by Tice's trial attorney so serious, she considered the appeal anyway.
Erie County District Attorney Brad Foulk said he may not object to Baxter's report, if court records support her finding that Logue missed the obvious alibi evidence.
"If what she says in her report is supported by the record, then we'd have to seriously consider whether not to appeal," Foulk said.
The records produced at Tice's trial in 1999 showed only that he had signed out of the juvenile detention center for the weekend. The two women with whom Tice alternately stayed have said they don't doubt the records Patton found which showed Tice wasn't staying at the home where the girl lived when she was molested in August 1997.
Furthermore, both women said Logue never contacted them to confirm the dates Tice visited their homes, even though Logue claimed he had. An official at the juvenile detention center also said he didn't recall Logue checking those dates with him, as Logue claimed.
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