do court appointed attorneys have to communicate with thier clients

Question

my son was charged with aggravated sexual assault and given 82 years in prison but filed an appeal but his court appointed attorney hasn't communicated at all with him is this normal? i cant afford a private attorney for him I am afraid dead lines will be missed and he hasnt even spoken to him on what happened.  What should we do?

John Michael Frick · Answer

Typically court-appointed attorneys do speak with their clients as needed.  Because an appeal must be based on what is already "in the record," a court-appointed appellate attorney has much less need to speak with a client than the trial attorney did.  By "in the record" I mean the court reporter's transcript of the trial testimony of the witnesses who testified at trial, along with the written and documentary evidence that was offered into evidence (the "Reporter's Record") along with all the court papers (e.g. indictment, motions, responses, etc.) filed with the court both before and after trial (the "Clerk's Record").  For purposes of an appeal, what happened can best be determined by reading the Reporter's Record and the Clerk's Record, rather than by talking to the client.  The "record" contains precise verbatim accounts of what happened as told by all of the witnesses and evidence.  A client's account can only be based on what that particular individual saw and recalls and is almost always told from the client's singular perspective.  In many criminal cases, the client may not have even testified.  If the client did testify, the judge or jury could discount, or disbelieve entirely, the client's account because of the client's obvious bias in the face of other evidence presented.

Q: do court appointed attorneys have to communicate with thier clients