His client, Nolan O\u2019Neal, had been a 20-year-old high school student when he was arrested in a murder case by Chester<\/a> police, who had four eyewitnesses identifying him. At his 2005 trial, those witnesses all recanted, saying police had pressured them to accuse O\u2019Neal. <\/p>\n By the time Galloway joined the case, in 2013, O\u2019Neal had already spent eight years in prison insisting he was innocent. The lawyer\u2019s job was to help him file a petition under Pennsylvania\u2019s Post Conviction Relief Act. That law provided a narrow path to freedom if Galloway could find crucial new evidence or prove that previous lawyers had mishandled the case.<\/p>\n But court records do not show that the attorney did much other than ask for more time. <\/p>\n In 2022, after nine years, one unsuccessful request to access evidence, and 41 extensions, Galloway filed a two-page petition addressing just one of the many issues O\u2019Neal had wanted him to raise. It would not be enough to get O\u2019Neal his day in court. <\/p>\n For more than half a century, Pennsylvania has promised people who claim they didn\u2019t get a fair trial the right to \u201ceffective\u201d post-conviction legal representation, regardless of their ability to pay. That is more than most states promise people after they have been convicted and lost their appeals. <\/p>\n Yet Pennsylvania has done little to fulfill that promise. The Philadelphia Inquirer and ProPublica previously reported that Pennsylvania lets lawyers resolve cases quickly using a practice that is discouraged in several states: filing \u201cno-merit\u201d letters, also known as Finley letters, urging judges to reject their clients\u2019 handwritten or typed claims. In Philadelphia, dozens who had received such letters later had their convictions or sentences overturned based on issues their lawyers had rejected or overlooked<\/a>. <\/p>\n But the problems go deeper than that: The state\u2019s loose rules and its failure to fund post-conviction work have made the type of breakdown O\u2019Neal encountered a recurring feature of this system. <\/p>\n By filing public records requests with courts serving all 67 Pennsylvania counties and analyzing a decade of court dockets, an Inquirer and ProPublica investigation found that the system Pennsylvania set up to protect the right to counsel instead allows, or even encourages, shoddy representation.<\/p>\n The news organizations found that:<\/p>\n Unlike in other types of appeals, attorneys handling post-conviction cases work under no particular timeline and are allowed numerous extensions. The state also has no standards regarding how many cases lawyers should be assigned, and many counties ask lawyers to sign contracts that set no limit on the number of cases courts can assign them. At least 250 people have languished in prison for five years or longer while waiting for their lawyers to act. <\/p>\n Unlike some<\/a> other<\/a> states<\/a>, such as North Carolina and New York, Pennsylvania requires no specific training, experience, or qualifications for appointed posttrial lawyers, and it holds them to few standards. Lawyers are not required to speak to their clients or take other basic investigative steps before withdrawing from cases by writing no-merit letters. <\/p>\n Pennsylvania, which lags behind almost every other state in funding legal defense for poor people, known as indigent defense, dedicates no money for posttrial work. Instead, it leaves it up to each individual county to set pay rates. A majority of county court systems use flat-rate fee structures that some other states ban. <\/p>\n While almost every county in the state has a public defender office, most post-conviction cases are handled by private lawyers who are paid hourly, by the case, or by the year and work with little to no supervision. Our review of court records found pay as low as $500 per case and delays as long as 19 years<\/a> without a single court filing. <\/p>\n In some counties, contracted lawyers\u2019 backlogs spanned dozens of cases. In Chester County<\/a>, an affluent region west of Philadelphia, a lawyer left cases untouched for as long as two years before the county ended his contract last fall. <\/p>\n Delaware County, where O\u2019Neal was convicted, relies on a group of part-time lawyers to handle most of its posttrial matters. One is Galloway, who has handled 20 or 30 posttrial cases per year for the county in addition to running his own law practice and, for a time, holding local elected office. Galloway said that his ethical obligation to confidentiality prevented him from commenting on O\u2019Neal\u2019s case. Judge George A. Pagano, who granted him 41 extensions on O\u2019Neal\u2019s case, declined to comment.<\/p>\n In the years Galloway was on the case, O\u2019Neal wrote him dozens of letters from state prison, proposing legal arguments and sending leads to investigate. <\/p>\n \u201cIt is a daunting and exhausting task to navigate this legal process and be heard,\u201d O\u2019Neal said in an interview. \u201cWe at times even have to fight the attorneys who are supposed to represent us.\u201d <\/p>\n It is a daunting and exhausting task to navigate this legal process and be heard. We at times even have to fight the attorneys who are supposed to represent us.<\/p>\n Nolan O’Neal<\/p>\n In 2020, he received a letter from the brother of the murder victim, admitting that his testimony against O\u2019Neal was a lie. \u201cI want to fix it. I know my brother would want me to. It\u2019s been long enough,\u201d he wrote. O\u2019Neal said he pleaded with Galloway to track down the man. <\/p>\n In 2022, Galloway attached the brother\u2019s signed statement to a sparse two-page brief, which mentioned none of the other issues O\u2019Neal had raised nine years earlier or the other witnesses who had come forward over the years. The judge started the process of dismissing the claim. One reason: The filing had been made too late. O\u2019Neal is still fighting his case, now with a new court-appointed lawyer. <\/p>\n Before they are assigned a lawyer, Pennsylvania prisoners must write the first draft of their post-conviction filing on their own within a strict one-year deadline. The lawyers appointed to revise their petitions, on the other hand, are not generally held to any timeline. The state courts say lawyers should act \u201cexpeditiously so as to reduce unnecessary delays<\/a>.\u201d Yet judges have granted extensions liberally, court dockets show, and in many cases failed to impose any deadlines at all. <\/p>\n An Inquirer and ProPublica review of court dockets found that hundreds of people have waited two years or longer, only to receive no-merit letters. That analysis is an undercount, since many court clerks do not clearly label attorney filings on their dockets. In Philadelphia alone, roughly 65 people have waited three to eight years for lawyers to take action before reaching that same outcome. Similarly, across the state, dockets show that lawyers received seven or more extensions in dozens of cases before filing Finley letters or nothing at all. <\/p>\n In 2017, Lee Mandell, who has been practicing law in Philadelphia for more than 50 years, sent a Finley letter saying that he had written to but never spoken with his client of four years and did not understand his claims.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is entirely unclear as to what the defendant really means,\u201d Mandell wrote. In his own review of the case, Mandell failed to flag an erroneous jury instruction that four years later would lead to the conviction being overturned<\/a>. Mandell was later formally reprimanded<\/a> for allowing another client\u2019s hearing to be delayed by six years, during which time two witnesses died. He did not return calls seeking comment.<\/p>\n Judges\u2019 inaction added to lawyers\u2019 delays, leaving matters to stagnate for years on end. In 2023, the state Superior Court registered such concerns about a case from Wayne<\/a> County, where a lawyer filed<\/a> a \u201ctwo-page, deficient motion to withdraw, and the PCRA court did nothing in this case for 20 years.\u201d <\/p>\n To be sure, there can be good reasons for delays, since investigations can be complex. Lawyers have spent years chasing down missing witnesses<\/a>, litigating requests for DNA testing<\/a>, or combing through police files<\/a>. <\/p>\n But in almost 200 post-conviction cases across Pennsylvania in the last 15 years, lawyers were appointed, then filed nothing at all over the span of a year or longer before being replaced with a new appointed lawyer. One of the cases stagnated for almost seven years, only for a new attorney to pick up the file. Another man was appointed five lawyers over eight years, dockets show, none of whom filed anything on his behalf.<\/p>\n Court officials have long been aware of the backlogs wracking this system, even publishing a law review article about it in 2003<\/a>. The study outlined needed reforms but acknowledged the lack of political will, saying the \u201clow status\u201d of these cases stems from a bias among judges and lawyers who believe \u201cthat most post conviction claims are frivolous.\u201d<\/p>\n No standards for lawyering<\/p>\n The loose timeline is just one dimension of a system with few standards. The state has published no best practices for indigent defense or guidelines<\/a> on how many cases a lawyer can take; it has provided no training and instituted virtually no guidelines to ensure that court-appointed lawyers are qualified. As a result, lawyers hold widely diverging views on just what obligations they have to their clients.<\/p>\n The Inquirer and ProPublica previously found that about three-quarters of the time, Philadelphia lawyers<\/a> who ended up filing Finley letters did not take basic steps such as meeting with their client, tracking down the trial lawyer\u2019s file, and obtaining all available discovery. <\/p>\n \u201cI do not know how you can evaluate trial counsel\u2019s performance, which is the main role of post-conviction counsel, without talking to your client and reading trial counsel\u2019s file,\u201d said Jennifer Merrigan, a cofounder of Phillips Black, a nonprofit law firm. That file would reveal whether the lawyer had consulted with experts, received all relevant evidence from the prosecutor, and investigated potential witnesses. <\/p>\n I do not know how you can evaluate trial counsel\u2019s performance, which is the main role of post-conviction counsel, without talking to your client and reading trial counsel\u2019s file.<\/p>\n Attorney Jennifer Merrigan<\/p>\n The state\u2019s lack of vetting and training stands in contrast with national norms. A majority of other states have centralized defender services or support offices that provide resources, education, and oversight. For instance, in North Carolina, appeals lawyers seeking court appointments must apply with the state appellate defender<\/a> and submit references, work history showing the lawyer is qualified to litigate appeals, and legal writing samples. They are also required to take a training course covering strategy and best practices. <\/p>\n Even without a statewide office, Pennsylvania\u2019s Supreme Court could establish minimum qualifications for lawyers handling indigent defense. In August, a state court committee published such a proposal<\/a>, but it recommends only that lawyers have relevant work experience \u201cto the extent practicable.\u201d Work experience requirements have been enforced in some other states, such as Ohio<\/a>, for years. But the committee\u2019s proposal argued that work experience is not \u201cpossible to quantify\u201d and that \u201cless-than-experienced representation is better than no representation.\u201d <\/p>\n Ted Skaarup, a public defender who has advocated for training and qualification requirements<\/a>, said inexperienced and untrained lawyers are more likely to default to writing Finley letters. New lawyers, he said, are left to consult with older attorneys who may pass on bad practices. \u201cYou go to them for advice and they say, \u2018I\u2019ll send you a copy of my [no-merit] letter.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Only one of the state\u2019s 67 counties provided written criteria requiring specific work experience for lawyers to be appointed to post-conviction cases in response to records requests. Philadelphia court leadership says<\/a> that lawyers must complete a training session and show they have recently handled three hearings involving disputed evidence. A volunteer panel tasked with approving prospective lawyers there rarely meets and is not empowered to approve or reject candidates based on writing samples, a core part of screening appeals lawyers in some other places.<\/p>\n In Pittsburgh, the nonprofit Allegheny Lawyers Initiative for Justice has urged local court officials to set up a system to screen and supervise appointed lawyers. For now, the organization is running its own voluntary trainings, as well as a resource center with office hours, a library of sample motions, and help with social service referrals. <\/p>\n Without such systems, the organization\u2019s executive director, Rob Perkins, said, \u201cThere\u2019s no quality control.\u201d Lawyers can get away with \u201cdoing a poor job in these cases for years without anyone really paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Your incentive is to do the least work\u2019<\/p>\n When attorney Corrie Woods took over Washington County\u2019s post-conviction caseload in 2020, he was startled to discover about a dozen files that had been untouched since being assigned to the previous lawyer in 2019 or earlier. In some, the lawyer\u2019s inaction had caused the clients to lose their appeal rights.<\/p>\n Looking back, Woods said, it was not surprising, given that the Western Pennsylvania county was paying him $25,000 a year as a part-timer for up to 24 cases. \u201cThese cases are not going to take priority in most law offices,\u201d said Woods, who now handles mostly personal injury cases. <\/p>\n Under such a contract, he said, \u201cYour incentive is to do the least work. You\u2019re not getting more for doing more.\u201d <\/p>\n These cases are not going to take priority in most law offices.<\/p>\n Corrie Woods, former post-conviction contract attorney<\/p>\n The American Bar Association<\/a> has long opposed such flat-fee pay structures for that reason. States including Colorado, Idaho, and Nevada<\/a> have banned them. <\/p>\n Not Pennsylvania. The state began contributing any money to indigent defense only in 2023. Today it kicks in just 57 cents per capita; neighboring states, on average, pay $26 per resident. Counties provide the rest as they see fit. A pending American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit claims that arrangement has resulted in widespread violations of the right to counsel.<\/p>\n Pennsylvania Spends Less Than Most Other States on Indigent Defense<\/p>\n \nAt 57 cents per resident, Pennsylvania\u2019s state-level contribution toward funding legal defense for poor people is a fraction of what neighboring states pay.\n<\/p>\n \nSource: State budget documents, U.S. Census 2025 population estimates\n<\/p>\n About three-quarters of Pennsylvanians live in counties that use flat-fee arrangements or cap the amount a lawyer can bill for a case. Daniel Buzard, the court administrator in the county where Woods held the contract several years ago, said in an email, \u201cThis provides financial stability for both parties.\u201d <\/p>\n Some counties pay as little as $500 per case. Based on time estimates from Maine<\/a>, one of the only states to publish post-conviction workload standards, that would come out to $11 per hour.<\/p>\n Twenty-one Pennsylvania counties offer flat annual pay for part-time lawyers \u2014 sometimes then assigning them caseloads that exceed Maine\u2019s standard for full-time work.<\/p>\n Only five of the 18 contracts obtained in response to public records requests included a limit on the number of cases the court could heap onto a lawyer. None of the contracts set deadlines, specified a time commitment, or described any oversight mechanism.<\/p>\n Stuart Wilder said his contract to handle post-conviction cases in Bucks County<\/a>, outside Philadelphia, kept the lights on in his office for years. He worked hard for clients, he said, and won several challenging cases. But he said the flat-fee structure did require him to deprioritize cases where he didn\u2019t see merit. <\/p>\n \u201cBeing able to file Finley letters gave me the time to work on cases I could fix,\u201d said Wilder, who recently retired.<\/p>\n Being able to file Finley letters gave me the time to work on cases I could fix.<\/p>\n Attorney Stuart Wilder<\/p>\n But in at least three counties, contract lawyers left multiple clients stranded for a year or longer with no progress on their cases, dockets show.<\/p>\n In 2021, the court in Erie County yanked 50 cases from attorney James P. Miller and eventually reported him for discipline<\/a>, citing extreme delays that cost some clients their appeal rights. Miller, whose law license was suspended as a result, declined to comment. But Erie court administrator Robert Catalde said the debacle spurred the county to double lawyers\u2019 pay to $46,800 and provide benefits. <\/p>\n A similar situation played out last year in Chester County, which abruptly ended its contract with the lawyer handling all its post-conviction cases, Charles Thomas Jr., after discovering that he had been putting in an average of just five hours a week across his roughly 25 cases. <\/p>\n One client, Patrick Hickson, said he spent two years trying to get Thomas to track down evidence that could clear him of a 2018 shooting or at least prove he had not gotten a fair trial. His defense lawyer had failed to call a single witness \u2014 admitting to the judge, mid-trial, that he had wrongly assumed the prosecutor would send a summons to an eyewitness who had told police Hickson was not the shooter. <\/p>\n To raise the issue, Hickson needed Thomas to track down the missing witness. But when he reached Thomas by phone in August 2025, for the first time in months, the lawyer told him he was off the case. \u201cHe said the courts told him he was taking too long,\u201d Hickson said. Thomas declined to comment. <\/p>\n Chester County criminal court administrator Jordan Ludwick acknowledged concerns about the delays but said he resolved the problem by finding a qualified lawyer to take over the contract. <\/p>\n That attorney, Shannon McDonald, said it was \u201cnot an easy transition.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cThere were many cases that had not been touched at all,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n She cut through the backlog by filing 17 briefs in just over three months. All but three were Finley letters. <\/p>\n \u201cThe case has to survive on the merits,\u201d she said, \u201cand, frankly, the deck is stacked against overturning a case.\u201d<\/p>\n This March, she also sent Hickson a Finley letter. McDonald said ethics rules prevented her from discussing Hickson\u2019s case, but in the letter she blamed Hickson for failing to track down the would-be witness and said his trial lawyer had a strategic reason for not sending the subpoena.<\/p>\n Reading the letter, Hickson said, \u201cI felt defeated.\u201d <\/p>\n Since McDonald asked to drop the case, he is pursuing exoneration alone. <\/p>\n Hannah Beckler of ProPublica contributed to this article.<\/p>\n Acknowledgment<\/p>\n The Inquirer\u2019s journalism is supported, in part, by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and readers like you. News and editorial content are created independently of The Inquirer\u2019s donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer\u2019s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com\/donate<\/a>. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org\/supporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min In 2020, seven years after he was appointed to represent a client who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[32426,4751,28,30,29,125446],"class_list":["post-305680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-delays","tag-legal","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-post-conviction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1791888734_498_circle_outline_footer_light_theme.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n