Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Difficulties Arising Out of No-Merit Reports

Post author:David Behm
Post published:February 21, 2012
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Public Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

Under Wisconsin Statute 809.32(1), an attorney representing a criminally convicted client on appeal must file a no-merit report if he or she:

concludes that a direct appeal on behalf of the [client] would be frivolous and without any arguable merit within the meaning of Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967), and the [client] requests that a no-merit report be filed or declines to consent to have the attorney close the file without further representation by the attorney.

A no-merit report is essentially as it sounds, a report to the Court of Appeals stating that the client has no arguable case. Once a no-merit report is filed, the client may choose to respond. If the client does not respond, or does and the court finds that there are no meritorious claims, the court will affirm the conviction.

This situation, however, brings to light an interesting predicament for convicted individuals.

Dieter Juedes Wins Second Best Oralist at Spong Tournament

Post author:Melissa Love Koenig
Post published:February 19, 2012
Post category:Marquette Law School Public

Yesterday I wrote that the Marquette moot court team was a quarter-finalist at the Spong Invitational Tournament at William & Mary School of Law. Since then, the team learned that one of its team members, Dieter Juedes, won the distinction of second best oralist for the entire competition. Congratulations to Dieter on this accomplishment.

Bias Beware

Post author:Joanne Lipo Zovic
Post published:February 19, 2012
Post category:Legal Practice Public

A friend sent me a recent blog post from the “Legal Skills Prof Blog” (who knew?) that she thought might be of interest to me in light of my current endeavor at blogging. The post briefly discusses the “negativity bias,” one of the many cognitive biases that can result from our unconscious use of heuristics. It reminded me of how significant these mental shortcuts are to us.

At its simplest, the negativity bias causes us to feel the sting of a negative experience or loss to a much greater degree than a positive. (Think of the bad customer service experience that never seems to diminish, while a good one, while nice at the time, quickly fades into oblivion.)

The author then goes on to ask whether or not this might provide a lesson in terms of pitching the best legal arguments. I have certainly seen the “parade of horribles” work to encourage parties in mediation to find a solution rather than continue the pain of the dispute at hand. I think the greater lesson is that as lawyers, we should be aware of the use of heuristics and the cognitive biases that may result from the unknowing misapplication of heuristics by an individual in evaluating information and then using this information to make a decision.