Humphries v. Detch
Annotate this CaseAppellant Carroll Humphries, a convicted felon, filed a writ of habeas corpus with the Supreme Court after his conviction. The Court reversed and remanded the case due to ineffective assistance of counsel. Upon remand, appellant pleaded nolo contendere to the crime of accessory before the fact to murder, and appellant was found guilty. Later, appellant instituted a legal malpractice action against his attorney, Paul Detch. Detch filed a motion to dismiss, which the circuit court granted. Appellant appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) in a suit against an attorney for negligence, the plaintiff must prove the attorney's employment, the attorney's neglect of a reasonable duty, and that such negligence was the proximate cause of loss to the plaintiff; (2) to state a cause of action for legal malpractice arising during a criminal proceeding, a plaintiff must establish that he is actually innocent of the underlying criminal offense; and (3) the rules of evidence in this case did not prohibit the conviction and sentence that resulted from the nolo contendere plea from being admitted as evidence in the legal malpractice action to prove the plaintiff was convicted of the crime that was the subject of the nolo contedere plea.
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