I saw the above headline and didn’t understand it.

An inmate is saying that attorneys are needed for death row appeals? Here’s what I immediately thought:

1. Don’t we recognize that it’s difficult to draft and file an appeal if you’re a death row inmate, as you more than likely don’t the legal training?
2. Isn’t this obvious? Why do we need an inmate pointing this out for us?
3. Isn’t there a law that requires attorneys to be appointed for indigent inmates so that they can have the full benefit of the post-conviction appeals process?

Having read beyond the headline, I discovered that — at least in Nebraska — no one cares whether you can afford an attorney or whether you believe you have a relevant appeal that ought to be heard before you’re executed.

Thus:

Raymond Mata Jr. argues in his appeal that he’s entitled to a court-appointed attorney because he’s on death row, considered indigent and seeks to raise constitutional issues in his 2000 conviction for the killing of a Scottsbluff boy.

Mata’s appeal asks the high court to expand the Nebraska Postconviction Act, which leaves it up to the district court to decide whether to appoint counsel for post-conviction relief actions, a type of appeal.

But state attorneys say no law requires court-appointed attorneys for inmates and it’s not up to the court to require those appointments.

So, the state is arguing here that no law exists whereby indigent death row inmates would have an attorney appointed for their post-conviction relief actions and that the courts shouldn’t be able to take it upon themselves to appoint someone.

In that case, why not simply execute the indigent convict immediately after sentencing and automatic review? In other words, why bother to tell the inmate that he has a variety of appeals he can file … if what we mean is that he has to somehow draft and file them himself?

We’re fooling ourselves if we think that an indigent death row inmate is going to get a fair shake at post-conviction relief without the benefit of an attorney. But I suppose, by and large, we don’t care how well oiled are the tracks leading from the courtroom to the execution chamber. This is just one more example.