Kuehne v. Hogan

I concur in the result reached by the majority, namely, affirming the trial court’s dismissal of Kuehne’s petition with prejudice. I am troubled, however, by the majority’s adoption of an actual innocence standard for malpractice cases brought by criminal defendants.1 The effect is to carve out what I perceive to be an unnecessary exception to long and well-settled tort law relating to professional negligence by attorneys and to create the potential for absurd results. It is my view that there is no need for such an exception because public defenders, such as Susan Hogan in this case, are…