....
It may (may) be illegal to help someone correctly fill out a form, but when the alternative is letting a man rot in jail for a crime he didn't commit that would seem to be justified.
Just how many times does it need to be repeated before it is understood that the issue was not "giving a form to" or even "helping someone correctly fill out a form" - so long as that help is limited to selecting the correct/most appropriate form, making sure all the boxes that need to be checked are checked, and the blanks that need to be filled in are filled in, and the like. This does not extend to telling/suggesting specifically what words to put on the form.
And I say that only because regulating "the practice of law" serves as the basis for being able to seek redress for inadequate/erroneous legal advice.
The issues seem to be that the Clerk discussed the progress of the petition/motion in such a manner as to be providing guidance/direction on how to proceed or how to respond to certain maneuvering by the state, and that the Clerk essentially engaged in gossip about the matter to the extent that she disclosed information that the court, for reasons it saw as needful and/or appropriate, had placed under seal. For those that are not familiar with the concept and process, information that is placed under seal is available to at least the attorneys for both sides Look up the concept of "discovery". It prevents Perry Mason-esque "gotcha!" moments.
There are a limited number of reasons why the court would see fit to withhold certain information from the defendant and/or the general public. Examples would be the home address and telephone number of a witness against Whitey Bulger who was in some sort of witness protection program, and sexually explicit photographs of minor children which constituted the primary evidence against Chester the Molester. Normally any material placed into a court record is considered a "public" record - anybody can go to the courthouse and ask to see it or get copies of it. The court can seal the name and address so that Mr. Bulger's supporters would not have an easy time locating the witness and attempting to persuade them not to testify, or so that the newspapers do not get the names of child victims and to the everlasting embarassment of the child publish them.
The first issue boils down, as I see it, to the defendant/appellant not being able to seek redress for any incompetence or factual error committed by the Clerk. It's called soverign immunity. The Clerk should not be shielded from the consequences of screwing up if they screw up outside the magesterial acts of their office. The ability to seek redress is supposed to be one of the motivators for attorneys to "get it right" - screw the pooch and feel it in the wallet.
The second issue bolis down, as I see it, to a direct challenge to the concept of the impartiality of the legal process and, coincidentally, a moral/ethical breach. Courts have been admonished repeatedly by higher appellate levels to liberaly construe the efforts of
pro se defendants/appellants, while still holding admitted Guild members to an exactingly high standard that the Guild itself has asked for.
The defendant/appellant wanted to have biological evidence DNA typed and matched between the defendant and the victim - something that was not done at trial and had not been done in the intervening years. While there may be an "approved" or "received" form for asking that such testing be done, the court would be obliged to construe in the favor of the defendant as much as possible both the actual request and the type of testing being requested. On the other hand, the trained monkey Guild members would not get a pass for asking for type A as opposed to types B and C DNA testing which would be expected to yield more useful (and possibly more favorable) results for their side. Thus, the defendant/appellant did not need much more than "an" examplar of a motion/order.
stay safe.
