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THOMAS DESERVES CHOICE OF WHO TO DEFEND HER
Sunday, October 26, 2003
Source: Palm Beach Post
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Hubert Lindsey will
decide next month whether a 15-year-old Guatemalan girl
accused of killing her newborn can choose new defense
attorneys, perhaps against the wishes of her father.
Petrona Tomas, an Akateco Indian, wants to dismiss
Marc Shiner, the West Palm Beach lawyer who has represented
Tomas since her arrest in October, and replace him
with Miami attorney David Kubiliun.
Her father, Miguel Pascual Tomas, and the Guatemalan-Maya
Center in Lake Worth hired Mr. Shiner. In June, Juvenile
Court Judge Roger Colton appointed Stuart immigration
attorney Marisol Zequeira Burke as the girl's legal
guardian, finding cause that Tomas had been abandoned,
abused or neglected. The father still holds his parental
rights.
The question for the system is about how it treats children
who are charged as adults. Prosecutors contend that
Tomas had the mental and emotional competence of an
adult when she delivered her breech-birth baby alone
in a Lake Worth apartment. They are prepared to try
her as an adult and seek adult penalties. If Tomas is
adult enough to face the system's harshest treatment,
however, she is adult enough to select the attorneys
she wants to defend her.
Tomas' intentions are clear. On Sept. 25, she signed
a two-page affidavit and initialed it eight times in
declaring her desire to discharge Mr. Shiner and enlist
Messrs. Kubiliun & Associates. A Kanjobal interpreter
was present and also signed the affidavit, unlike several
court and police proceedings during which Tomas had
no translator to speak her native Mayan language, an
egregious violation of due process. Tutors have worked
with her for almost a year at the Palm Beach County
Jail, and they say she has learned to read and write
in simple Spanish. She has the right to play an active
role in her defense. |
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