Mashaney v. Board of Indigents' Defense Services

I join and concur fully with today’s holding as set forth in the four syllabus paragraphs. I write separately to make clear what we have not decided. Specifically, today’s *653decision does not decide what role a criminal defendant’s actual guilt might play in a subsequent civil legal malpractice lawsuit. Our full-throated approval of Judge Atcheson’s dissenting opinion—an approval I cannot echo—could leave the impression that we have adopted his view that in these cases the criminal defendant’s “guilt did not bring about or cause the harm.” Mashaney v. Board of Indigents’ Defense Services, 49…