An Indian national convicted of human smuggling last year is asking a US appeals court to allow him to represent himself in a case linked to the deaths of an Indian family who froze to death near the US-Canada border in 2022.Harshkumar Patel is currently in a Pennsylvania prison. He filed a motion this week in the US Court of Appeals, claiming he has been left with no choice due to his lawyer’s “incompetent conduct.” Patel says his first court-appointed lawyer deemed his appeal without merit, so he hired private lawyer Seth Kretzer, with fees covered by his family and friends, reports CBC News.Patel says Kretzer requested several extensions to file the opening brief, with the final deadline set for 22 December. He claims that after repeatedly asking to see a draft, Kretzer provided versions that appeared to include plagiarised sections from other cases, including a brief prepared by the federal public defender’s office for his co-accused, Steve Shand.Shand’s appeal was filed last month, raising questions over whether the traffic stop that led to his arrest on the night of the family’s death was justified. It also questioned whether he should have known the sensitive and vulnerable family would attempt the border crossing that night. The Patel family, which was unrelated to Harshkumar Patel, died from extreme exposure on January 19, 2022, while attempting to illegally cross into Minnesota during a blizzard. Their frozen, lifeless bodies were found 12 metres from the US border.According to a photo posted to Facebook in 2019, the late Patel family included: Jagdish, 39, Dharmik, 3, Vihangi, 11, and Vaishali, 37. In his motion, Harshkumar Patel asks the court to let him file his own appeal brief and “disregard any future brief filed by the counsel.” He also seeks a public reprimand for Kretzer and a refund of the legal fees.Kretzer responded in an email, saying Patel’s brief is not due for nearly two weeks and “there is a wide chasm between a rough draft and the brief which is ultimately filed — and the many versions in between.” Kretzer says he is a credible lawyer and cited his works in the US Supreme Court: “While I would never divulge any communications between myself and a client, I have argued two cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, so I can assure you I have never plagiarized any brief.” Kretzer said he still intends to file a brief unless the court grants Patel’s request, and noted that a reprimand “isn’t something done through an appeals court.”
