August 15, 2011

Your Honor,

I wrote you three letters on June 2, 7 and July 15, 2011 and I informed you that I was going to file a motion for a new trial based on the ineffectiveness of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, and constitutional or legal errors that occurred during the course of my trial. As you know, when one of the bases of a motion for new trial is ineffectiveness of counsel and a new attorney is doing the motion, the indigent defendant is entitled to have a full trial transcript.

Your Honor, a new trial motion is an integral part of the trial itself. Thus, since the poor, as well as the rich, are entitled to Effective representation by counsel at very stage of a criminal prosecution, a situation could conceivably arise where the court’s refusal to furnish an indigent defendant with a full reporter’s transcript would not only deny him equal protection under the law, if under similar circumstances full transcript were available to an affluent defendant, but would also deprive him of effective representation by counsel at a critical stage of his trial. Since a motion for a new trial is an integral part of the trial itself, a full reporter’s transcript must be furnished to all defendants, rich or poor, whenever necessary for effective representation by counsel at that important stage of the proceeding. (People v. Westbrook (1976) 57cal. App.3d 260, 129cal. Rptr.143)

Your Honor, my new attorney should have a full trial transcript in order to write an effective motion. He cannot write an effective motion based only on the information I gave to him. As you know, he did not participate in my trial. He does not know what was going on during my trial. So I really don’t understand how a new attorney who did not participate in the trial can write an effective motion for a new trial without having a full trial transcript. That is impossible, Your Honor. He should have a full trial transcript in order to view the ineffectiveness of counsel, prosecutorial misconduct and legal errors that occurred during the trial. Thus, I am respectfully asking you to let him have a full trial transcript in order to write an effective motion for a new trial.

Sincerely,                                                            Asmerom T. Gebreselassie