Murder Of Bryan Koics

By Matthew Conaster: The Notice of Appeal is required to be filed within the time allowed by statue (usually 10-30 days following final judgment). Its a simple form and doesn’t set forth the grounds or argument of why he is appealing. Following this filing of the Notice of Appeal the higher court’s clerk will docket the appeal and a time schedule is set by the Appellant Court as to when the briefs are to be filed. Typically the court will order the verbatim transcripts to be prepared by the court’s reporter and address and rule on any matters concerning the defendant’s petition if any to proceed In Forma Pauperis (latin for ‘broke as fuck’) before the appeals process truly begins. I would suspect Harlow has no funds to retain counsel for his direct appeal. Since a direct appeal is a constitutional right afforded to any criminal defendant the court will be required to appoint counsel to represent Harlow on appeal if they find Harlow has no means to employ counsel. His trial attorneys (who were retained during trial) may end up most likely not representing Harlow on appeal and the court will appoint counsel from a pool of attorneys usually more experienced with appeals. Once the initial brief is filed the Commonwealth Attorney General’s office will answer the brief in writing. This process will take many months to complete before the Appeals Court will consider and rule on the appeal. If the Commonwealth Appeals Court Affirms Harlow’s verdict and sentence then Harlow may petition the US Supreme Court for a Writ of Certiorari to hear the appeal court’s decision. If that fails Harlow will then have no other course to fight his case short of another action known as Writ of Habeas Corpus which is basically a post conviction petition that usually shows things like new evidence coming forth or some other matter not then known to everyone during the course of the initial trial. All of these appeal hearings will be mostly done on paper with no appearance in court by Harlow himself. The appeals court may grant a few minutes to Harlow’s attorney for an oral argument before the panel of appeal judges - but short of that this will all be done on paper. Meanwhile Harlow will learn about all of this via US Mail. In fact more people will know about what’s going on before Harlow himself knows. Bottom-line as I see it, Harlow’s trial was more than fair and short of some new evidence that would appear to show him innocent of the crime he doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell. His best bet will be to become a model inmate and hope somewhere in the future the laws may change and afford him a chance at parole or a reduction in his sentence for being a good boy. This is a very likely event that may come to pass as prisons become more crowded and politics shift away from anti-crime legislature. The late 1960s were the last era of this type of current change. They say history repeats itself. In 30-40 years Harlow MAY once again walk the streets. story credit: 365gay.com