Kevin Herrick Wrongful Conviction, Kevin is Next

Ed Leinster, retained as Kevin's defense attorney in the criminal jury trial, was found to be "absolutely unprepared for this case". A 1996 report by prominent criminal defense expert Patrick Doherty stated this conclusion after reviewing the records. Doherty, who called it "one of the flakiest cases" he had ever encountered, explained that while Leinster was talented and "not bad on his feet," he "just didn’t do the groundwork that he needed to do" and "was seeing things for the very first time, right there and then in front of the jury", which Doherty asserted "should never ever happen".

Leinster's lack of preparation was comprehensive and included critical failures such as:

• Failing to conduct a pre-trial investigation.
• Not reviewing the evidence.
• Not performing witness interviews or obtaining key alibi witness depositions.
• Taking no action to discover the ownership of the vehicle that John Doe reported the perpetrator used to flee the scene.
• Having only one brief meeting with Kevin before the trial, during which he did not discuss defense strategy nor obtain details for Kevin’s side of the story.
• Failing to disclose a concurrent case that barred him from seeking DNA testing.

Additionally, Mr. Leinster failed to properly file the appellate motion for a new trial, which essentially denied Kevin from obtaining constitutional due process.

These professional shortcomings were mirrored by Leinster's personal and professional struggles. He was arrested numerous times and suspended multiple times from practicing law by the Florida Bar Association due to his drug and alcohol addiction. Ultimately, his license to practice law was revoked in January 2000, at which time he was sentenced to five years in prison after his seventh DUI conviction.

Leinster tells his story of alcohol’s insidious grip on his life with a frankness and perspective that comes from having a lot of time to think, sitting in a prison cell. He hopes his “riches to rags story” can serve as a wake-up call to others. 

Speeding 100 mph in a Cadillac, he got popped for his first DUI in 1979. “I was completely smashed,” but the arrest, he admits, “didn’t really catch my attention one way or another.”

By the early ’80s, Leinster was snorting cocaine, “the in-thing at the time,” a casual sideshow to the main act of drinking. It cost him an arrest for holding a $10 vial of cocaine — fallout, Leinster insists, from being set up by police who didn’t like his “massage parlor clients.” In 1985, the state agreed to spare him a felony record for possession of cocaine and resisting arrest without violence and battery, the Bar suspended him for 91 days, and he agreed to go to an alcohol rehabilitation center. “I went through all the mea culpas,” he says. Then he went back to drinking.

Another DUI landed him two months in the Orange County Jail, enduring the humiliation once reserved for his clients: mug shot, fingerprints, orange jumpsuit, huddled in a cramped cell. It took him a year to get reinstated at the Bar. 

When he got another DUI in 1995, the Bar was back in his life, with a 21-day suspension, two years probation, and help to quit drinking. More psychological evaluations and rehab centers. 

The grand finale hit in 1998 when he ran a red light and hit a woman broadside. Connie Vernon, visiting Orlando with her teenage daughter from Alabama for a softball tournament. She was unconscious for days, suffered facial injuries and brain damage, and was hospitalized for weeks. Within four days, he was arrested in Vegas and flown to Orlando, where he pleaded no contest to DUI with great bodily injury, and was sent to prison for five years, followed by five years probation. The victim recovered, and Leinster has paid thousands toward the court-ordered $135,000 restitution.  

For many years, Ed found a way to practice while addicted. Don’t know how he did it. Actually, he was arrested 20 times. The interesting thing was, his performance in court did not seem to suffer as a result of his alcohol problems. In other words, he was so good that he could win a case drunk. A circuit court judge here in Orange County was questioned about Ed’s sobriety while in the courtroom, yet she shrugged off these concerns, explaining that “a drunk Ed Leinster is a better attorney than most of the sober attorneys that appear in my courtroom.” Yes, he was that good. Imagine that. A judge knows you’re drunk but you’re just so damn good that no claim of “impairment” will bear out of the transcripts.