Finley “No-Merit” Letters: An Ethical Lawyering Dilemma

On this episode, we take a profoundly hard look at the ethical landscape of criminal defense lawyering through the lens of a Pennsylvania-specific criminal post-conviction procedure called the Finley “No-Merit” letter. With us for this discussion is an esteemed group of individuals from Phillips Black, a nonprofit public interest law practice dedicated to providing the highest quality of legal representation to incarcerated individuals in the United States sentenced to the severest penalties under law. Joining us are two Phillips Black staff attorneys, Thomas Roberts and Elie Kirshner, both HarvardLaw graduates, as well as their colleagues, Yahya Moore and Stephen Lazar, both of whom were wrongfully convicted of second-degree murder, which, in Pennsylvania, meant that they were automatically sentenced to life without parole. Yahya was incarcerated for 27 years, and Stephen for 16, before both of their convictions and sentences were later vacated. Yahya and Stephen both now work as paralegals helping petitioners navigate post-conviction. If you want to learn more about Finley letters after listening, you can check out Phillips Black’s comprehensive Finley Report at phillipsblack.org/finleyreport, or you can read Yahya and Thomas’s co-authored article about Finley letters published by the Harvard Law Review.