Death Penalty
Join this site if you are a volunteer attorney, legal services advocate, law student or faculty advising low income and disadvantaged clients, there are resources here to help you.
Welcome!
Hosted by the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project, this practice area contains a password-protectedonline library of legal materials, as well as other informationuseful to lawyers for individuals facing a death sentence or who are currently sitting on Death Row.The practice area was developed through the generosity of The Open Society Institute and the law firm of Shearman & Sterling.
Please join this practice area if you are currently representing a client on death row or facing the death penalty at trial.
If you are not a lawyer or not currently representing a person facing a death sentence or on Death Row:
Please feel free to peruse the areas of the site that are non-password protected: the calendar, news, descriptions of states with greatest need, and the other links on this page.
Pro Bono Opportunities for Lawyers:
The need for pro bono firms continues to grow. Dozens of persons on death rows throughout the country are without counsel. Many more have been appointed attorneys who lack the training, experience or resources to provide effective representation. While each individual has the right to seek post-conviction relief of his conviction and sentence, there is no federal constitutional guarantee that a lawyer be appointed in state proceedings. State post-conviction proceedings are often the first real opportunity for prisoners to establish their innocence or demonstrate constitutional errors that infected the capital trial.
If you are an attorney and you are interested in representing a prisoner on death row, please contact either
Robin M. Maher, Esq., Director
maherr@staff.abanet.org OR
Michele M. Meitl, Esq.,
Staff Attorney
meitlm@staff.abanet.org at the
ABA Death Penalty Representation Project
740 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: (202) 662-1738
Fax: (202) 662-8649
About Us:The Project was established by the American Bar Association to inform the bar and the public about the lack of representation available to death row inmates. We address the urgent need for counsel by recruiting volunteer lawyers and offering them training and support. We seek to promote systemic change that will guarantee that all those facing execution are represented at every stage of the proceedings by qualified, adequately compensated counsel. The Project does not take a position on the death penalty itself; rather, our goal is to ensure that basic constitutional protections have been provided to all those sentenced to death.
Current Caseload. Since 1998, the Project has placed 180 capital post-conviction cases with private law firmsacross the country. An updatedlist of recruited law firms appears on the Resources page. These cases generally involve representation of an individual in state and/or federal habeas corpus proceedings. Additionally, the Project has recruited 42 lawyers and law firms to work on such issues as cert. petitions, ABA Supreme Court amicus briefs, clemency petitions, and other matters. As a result of federal legislation during the past several years, it is more important than ever to secure qualified counsel at the state post-conviction stage. Many of the participants in this practice area come from the country's most prestigious law firms and have a long-standing commitment to due process and fundamental fairness.
Practice Area Host:
ABA Death Penalty Representation Project
News
The American Bar Association filed comments in response to the notice of proposed rulemaking regarding the Certification Process for State Capital Systems, Docket No. OJP (DOJ) -1464. View the comments here.
This year The ABA Exceptional Service Award for Death Penalty Representation honored the efforts of Mayer Brown LLP and Wilmer Hale LLP.
Did you know?
"We have dozens of people in Alabama who are literally dying for effective legal assistance. With a 27 percent increase in the number of individuals sentenced to death in this state since the closure of the Resource Center, the need for pro bono counsel has never been greater."
Bryan Stevenson, Dir. Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama.
Click here forcurrent news alerts, recent studies and reports on capital punishment, including a study on exonerations in the U.S. from 1989-2003, and the ABA's amicus brief filed on behalf of the respondent in Schriro v. Landrigan.
In Spring 2004, the Toledo Law Review published a special edition featuring the stories of civil lawyers who have provided pro bono representation for individuals on death row. To view a copy of the complete law review, please click on the link below:
Spring 2004 Toledo Law Review
On October 24, 2003, the ABA and Hofstra University School of Law hosted "Strengthening the Guiding Hand of Counsel: Reforming Capital Defense Systems", a day-long academic conference on the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases.
In coordination with the conference, the Hofstra Law Review published a special edition featuring the ABA Guidelines and commentaries on specific Guidelines by law professors and other experts in the field of capital defense.
To access both the 1989 and 2003 ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases, please go to the ABA Death Penalty Representation Project's Resources page by clicking here
To view/download a list of court cases which cite to the ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases, click here
To view/download brief summaries of cases citing the ABA Guidelines, click here
Photo credit: "Glen McGinnis. On his twenty-first birthday" by Ken Light. All copyrights reserved by Mr. Light. Glen McGinnis, who was 17 years old at the time of the crime, was put to death by the State of Texas on Jan. 25, 2000. He was the 205th individual executed in Texas since the reinstatement of the death penalty. Glen was represented by a pro bono firm in post-conviction proceedings. The ABA, which has a long-standing policy against the execution of those who were under 18 at the time of the offense, called for a grant of clemency.
Your tax-deductible financial contributions help provide the Project with the resources we need to work toward equal justice for all. THANK YOU for your support!
Send contributions to
ABA Death Penalty Representation Project
740 15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20005
