Rafael Flores v. Joseph Demskie, Superintendent of Woodbourne Correctional Facility

On this appeal, my colleagues suggest that I join them in holding that Rafael Flores has been incarcerated wrongfully for the past ten years and that the responsibility for this great wrong rests on the shoulders of his former attorney, Robert Katz. In short, the issue, as my colleagues frame it, is not whether Flores sodomized Miguel S.; the evidence is clear that he did. In effect, therefore, we are asked to pass judgment on the lawyer, Robert Katz, not the defendant, i.e., “to grade counsel’s performance,” a task we are not authorized to perform in this habeas corpus proceeding. See…