John Stacy Young Wants a New Trial and A New Witness Will Testify Tuesday

Bizarre hardly begins to capture the essence of this trial and its aftermath.

Frank Sellers puts himself on record as being one of the worst bungling attorneys ever in his lame attempt to blame a juror for. . .something. Why a prospective client, reading Sellers’ own words, would ever hire him is beyond me.

Sellers’ motion points to “. . .oversights by defense attorneys during jury selection,” according to one news account. Then follows a strangely-worded paragraph from Sellers, who apparently takes the blame from Hurley and a) claims though he “exercised reasonable diligence” (the norm expected of an attorney) in questioning the juror, b) he nonetheless admits that he was “ineffective” which c) led as a result to a “colossal error” on his part, according to another news outlet’s reporting.

Let’s pause here. When was the last time you heard of someone exercising reasonable diligence whose efforts led to a colossal error? It’s absurd. Is Sellers reasonable? Is he ineffective? He can’t have it both ways. By accusing himself of being “ineffective” (as bad a word as there is in the legal profession) and making a colossal error, Sellers, it would seem, disqualifies himself from further representing Young.

Moreover, Sellers defends himself from a charge which, to my knowledge, has not been made public, namely, that his error was “not trial strategy.” That seems an odd phrase to include in a petition to the court, given that ineffective assistance of counsel and colossal errors have never been considered good ways to defend a client. He learned this in law school, right?

Since Sellers brings up the issue, though, it would, in fact, be interesting to know just what the trial strategy was. Let’s start with whether young Sellers planned to be “reasonable” or “ineffective” at trial. Since those two words are mutually exclusive, it is up to Sellers to disclose whether he is ineffective as a matter of course or whether he is reasonable as a matter of course.

Look at it this way: What if someone told you “Although I exercised reasonable judgment in spending the day at the bar, I was ineffective behind the wheel, which led to a colossal error in the form of a wrecked car”? Does that even make sense? Of course not.