An appellate court says a judge can appoint a lawyer to represent a woman who wants a shot at undoing her murder conviction. But the judge doesn’t have to. Even if she doesn’t, the judge has to hold a hearing on it before deciding.
Forty-two year old Jamie Lomeli is halfway through a 24-year prison sentence for taking part in a murder on Ottawa’s west side in 2011. Lomeli has claimed that two co-defendants gave questionable testimony and that she didn’t know what was going to happen the morning 30-year old Darrio Hunter got hit and stabbed in her driveway.
So far, judges have upheld her conviction, finding that she sent text messages luring Hunter, a cocaine dealer, to her apartment on Pierce St. Prosecutors said Lomeli’s co-defendants wanted revenge because Hunter sold them a low quality batch.
Although Lomeli had a court-appointed lawyer for one of her petitions, Judge Cynthia Raccuglia said that she had no authority to appoint a lawyer to help Lomeli with another one. The appellate court in Ottawa is sending it back for a hearing, which may end with the same result.