Attorney in trouble before high court

Monday, Oct. 18, 2004 | 9:38 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- In a strongly worded opinion, the Nevada Supreme Court said the performance of Reno lawyer Robert B. Lindsay was "wholly substandard and unacceptable" and ordered him removed from representing a murderer on death row.

In the unusual order Thursday, the state's highest court also prohibited Lindsay from practicing before it in any future appeal without express permission. And it referred the court's complaint against Lindsay to the State Bar of Nevada for potential disciplinary action.

Lindsay had been handling the appeal of David S. Middleton, who was sentenced to death in 1997 for the murders of Katherine Powell and Thelma Davila. The women were abducted from their Washoe County homes and later were found dead, apparently of strangulation.

The Supreme Court in 1998 affirmed Middleton's conviction. Middleton then filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus that was denied in the district court and then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The court said it had to issue six orders directing Lindsay to file an overdue opening brief. He finally submitted one of 88 pages. The court directed him to cut it to 80 pages. Lindsay then tore off the final eight pages of the brief, which cut out half of his argument on one of the appeal issues and completely eliminated four other issues that had been listed in the table of contents.

The court said the brief by "Lindsay was disorganized and often incoherent. There were improper legal citations, typographical errors and arguments with no discernable beginning or end."

Lindsay failed to provide a complete and relevant statement of the facts in his brief, the court also noted, and wrote that the multiple violations by Lindsay of appellate procedure "evince a clear disregard by Lindsay for this court, the rules governing the practice of attorneys before it and most important, the obligations incumbent upon him as counsel for a client facing a death sentence."

The court ordered the Middleton case returned to District Court in Reno and ordered the appointment of a new attorney and a new start for the habeas corpus proceeding.