Convicted Militiaman Schaeffer Cox Fires Attorney
Cox’s attorney Nelson Traverso questions FBI informant Bill Fulton
Schaeffer Cox, who was recently found guilty in federal court on multiple counts including conspiracy to commit murder, solicitation to commit a crime of violence, and various weapons charges, has fired his attorney Nelson Traverso.
In papers filed today, Traverso moved to withdraw from the case since Cox has discharged him from representation. “Mr. Cox is extremely dissatisfied with counsel’s representation and expressly requests that any further attorney-client representation be terminated,” Traverso said in his motion to withdraw from the case. He has been Cox’s attorney since March 23, 2011.
Cox, who is currently being held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex in downtown Anchorage, will seek other counsel.
Documents state that Cox believes “counsel’s representation was significantly short of his expectations and that Mr. Traverso provided ineffective assistance of counsel which contributed to Mr. Cox’s conviction on multiple counts.” Specifically, Cox expressed “on numerous occasions” his dissatisfaction with “counsel’s presentation, direct examinations, cross-examinations, exhibits, witnesses called on his behalf, and arguments raised during the trial.”
There is no indication of whether Cox plans to appeal any of his nine convictions. The sentencing date for Cox, and fellow defendants Coleman Barney, and Lonnie Vernon is currently scheduled for September 14. Barney’s lawyer has said he plans to appeal at least one of his two convictions on possession, and conspiracy to possess unregistered silencers and destructive devices.
Schaeffer Cox seems like a world-class whiner to me.
To observor: a lawyer can provide ineffective assistance by doing what his or her client wants, too. Given what Nelson Traverso had to work with, he didn’t do too badly. We’ll just have to wait and see what the 9th Circuit says.
To slipstream: I agree. Great art.
/WC
I think gun owning & shooting are good in Alaska. I’ve seen the joy in a family a young girl walking back from school takes the long way so to shoot a Grouse with .22 to take grandmother.
We Alaskans know
No one on this thread has stated anywhere, that I can recall, that they think guns are categorically bad.
Misuse of weapons for purposes of sedition is not the same as shooting a grouse for dinner, just as deliberately driving a car over someone to injure them is not the same as driving to work.
Nor is gun owning and shooting good only in Alaska. Lots of people all over the country – the world – own guns for sport and pleasure. But that’s not the same as owning guns for purposes of drive-by shootings, is it?
In short, living in Alaska makes one an Alaskan – owning a gun isn’t any special claim to fame.
Did that joyous family have a fully automatic belt fed tripod mounted 30 caliber machine gun stashed in a trailer, hand grenades, silencers, and a list of troopers’ and federal employees’ home addresses?
Because Cox and his toy soldiers did.
And once again, compliments on your amazingly lifelike artwork, AKM! It almost makes me feel as if I were right next to you in the courtroom watching this circus!
I feel the same, and I’m an artist.
I suppose I am not surprised Mr Cox asserts his attorney “provided ineffective assistance of counsel which contributed to Mr. Cox’s conviction on multiple counts” nor will I be surprised if Mr Cox somehow presents this reasoning in support of an argument about
“whether Cox’s constitutionally-mandated right to competent legal representation was met. The standard has two prongs: was the attorney competent, and if not, was the attorney’s poor work directly responsible for the trial’s outcome? ”
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/convicted-militia-leader-schaeffer-cox-fires-his-attorney
and asserts that his conviction should be tossed.
If it can be shown that allowing Mr Cox to present himself as a Ghandi type at trial in face of the mountain of evidence to the contrary affected the outcome , maybe he has a point, not enough of one to overturn the verdicts , but a point nonetheless .
And probably not a point Mr Cox would really want to defend were he to think about it.
Saying your attorney allowed you to put your foot in your mouth and swallow it up to your knee is not such a thing to argue in public.
I guess we’ll see what this all about soon…
Frances Agustus Scheaffer Cox wasn’t able to say “I’m Randy Weaver”
Fortunately.
This is a standard tactic to try and overturn a guilty verdict.. fire the attorney and say that he was incompetent… typically doesn’t work, but there ARE some bad lawyers out there.. don’t expect the tactic to work… but the defendant has nothing to lose in doing it… other than tie up your tax dollars and the court’s time… I watched local murderer and rapist do it here … didn’t get him anywhere, except out of prison for a few days to attend court…
Maybe he spent his time in jail reading about the real Ghandi and realized his lawyer should have cautioned against the comparison.
There are some bad lawyers, and there are some good lawyers who make bad mistakes during a trial. Our Constitution provides protections for accused individuals so that we are reasonably certain that the government can only put the guilty in jail.(Still far from 100% reliable) That’s the Constitution that most of us live under, and are proud to call our own. Not the constitution of Schaeffer Cox’s imagination.
Little Francis believes the court has no authority over him. Why bother having an attorney at all?
After hearing Cox speak and watching his attorney in action, I believe he would have done much better to represent himself.
There were numerous occasions Cox asked for specific audio clips to be submitted, which were never submitted by his counsel. Evidence that would’ve helped establish his credibility. His counsel had also been given questions to ask. 150 questions to ask a key witness and only asked about 20. There is some clout to what Cox claims.
When an attorney refuses to do as the defendant who has hired him has asked and does not submit evidence, etc as requested by said employer/defendant. I would call that “ineffective counsel.”
Be wary of falling into such a simplistic notion of employer/employee relations as regards the legal notion of effective or ineffective counsel :
(e) Defense counsel, in common with all members of the bar, is subject to standards of conduct stated in statutes, rules, decisions of courts, and codes, canons, or other standards of professional conduct. Defense counsel has no duty to execute any directive of the accused which does not comport with law or such standards. Defense counsel is the professional representative of the accused, not the accused’s alter ego.
http://www.americanbar.org/publications/criminal_justice_section_archive/crimjust_standards_dfunc_blk.html#7.5
While there is some shifting going on as regards what the law and courts see as ineffective counsel
http://www.caught.net/caught/ineffassiststudy.pdf
the whole thing is rather more complicated than assuming that if Mr Traverso had followed Mr Cox’s directives there would have been no conviction.
If Mr Cox hopes to have those convictions overturned because of “ineffective counsel” he has to come up with more than what you are saying to have it mean anything.
As he has a scofflaw history already with his machinations, games, and all (Denny’s trial comes to mind) he will have a hard time convincing a court that his attorney did anything unfair to him by not following his instructions/strategy. Mr Cox’s personal history of “strategy” of dealing with defending his stance is very bad and very public.
Let’s all get together and get this worked out. How about 8 a.m. Saturday at Denny’s?
good one Slip….and while he is at it Cox should fire that doggone judge and that dad-blamed jury also….too.
alrighty then! see ya Sat at 8 AM…
if I can get a plane into the big city 🙂
While one response I made here awaits moderation because I put 2 links in it ( I swear I’m not spamming , AKM! ) there is a further set of issues surrounding Mr Cox’s convictions which will play into any notion that his convictions be overturned and they turn round the trial being of all 3 gents together.
Mr Barney was by many accounts a credible witness for himself and his stated concerns that Mr Cox was derailing into dangerous territory seem to have resulted in the jury deadlocking on the most serious charge against him but he was convicted on multiple other charges. The assumption that Mr Cox would have had a fully different outcome with “effective counsel” in that context gets shakier by the minute.
Wow!
“Evidence that would’ve helped establish his credibility.” His credibility as what? Wannabe ruler of Alaska?
“150 questions to ask a key witness and only asked about 20” Right, and because some questions Cox wanted asking weren’t asked then the whole thing must be wrong? Apart from the response already given about the obligations of counsel, how about his counsel realising that some of these questions would either cause Cox to look bad in the eyes of the court or open up further lines of attack off the prosecution? Don’t forget, Cox’s idea of a court is a bunch of acquaintances at Denny’s who have already been told how to vote on the charges.
This whole episode is Cox being right and everyone else being wrong and / or conspiring against him. It can’t be that little Coxie could be wrong, something else must have caused the problem. So getting found guilty must be the fault of his lawyer. I suspect client privilege will prevent us hearing Mr Traverso’s side of the story.
And I’ve forgotten who posted it but wasn’t it a .50 cal not a .30. You need that extra stopping/penetration power when er, hang on a minute, er, when you, er………
Naw, it was a 30. I’m sure little Francis would have preferred the 50 — but have you priced those things recently?
From AKM’s courtroom play-by-play:
“Next is a picture of a duffel bag that was wrapped in plastic and stored in the trailer. The contents reveal a crank, a tripod, and a semi-automatic sniper rifle. It appeared to be heavy, and it took two prosecutors to haul the duffel bag to the stand so Agent Goden could identify it. The name on baggage tags said Schaeffer Cox. She described it – 7.62mm 30 caliber. Cox smiled wistfully at the gun, almost like he couldn’t help himself. If you just saw his face, he looked like a kid who was watching some kind of adorable animal video on YouTube.”
http://www.themudflats.org/2012/05/10/schaeffer-cox-trial-the-book-of-armaments-chapter-3-2/
I knew I had got .50 cal from somewhere. It was talked about as a possible purchase:
“OLSON: Can you get 50 cals? (…) I want something that I can make…
FULTON: You want a Ma Duece?
OLSON: Yeah.”
I’m told the ammunition is horrendously expensive as well as the actual weapon.
Guess he feels Denny’s gave him a better trial. Good luck Cox., you’re going to need someone. I bet he’ll represent himself.
Anyone who represents himself has a fool for a lawyer. Oh, wait a minute….