See more about our work as featured in:
American Lawyer and The Washington Post

While each individual has the right to seek post-conviction relief, there is no federal constitutional guarantee that a lawyer will be appointed in state post-conviction proceedings. As a consequence, many prisoners on death row throughout the country lack counsel to challenge their convictions and death sentences. Many more have been appointed attorneys who lack the training, experience, or resources to provide effective representation.

EDITOR OF THE AMERICAN LAWYER URGES FIRMS TO TAKE PRO BONO DEATH PENALTY CASES

Civil law firms throughout the country, large and small, have agreed to provide pro bono representation to indigent prisoners. To read more about their successes, click here. For more information on volunteering as pro bono counsel to inmates on death row, please call us at (202) 662-1738 or send an e-mail to deathpenaltyproject@staff.abanet.org.

Please consider showing your support for our work by making a donation to the Death Penalty Representation Project. In addition to seeking lawyers for prisoners, we also endeavor to provide expert guidance, resources and training to pro bono lawyers and law firms. Your financial assistance will help us continue to provide resources and information to pro bono attorneys that work on death penalty cases. For more information on making a contribution, contact us or view our brochure.

This year the Project will celebrate its dedicated volunteers at the 22nd Anniversary & Volunteer Recognition Event in New York City on September 9, 2008. Pro bono firms are nominated by their colleagues for exceptional service to prisoners on Death Row and honored with our award. Previous award honorees have included WilmerHale LLP, Mayer Brown LLP, Sidley Austin LLP, Covington & Burling LLP, Jenner & Block LLP, King & Spalding LLP, and Skadden Arps LLP.

To be eligible for the award, we must receive a completed Application and a Letter of Nomination for each nominee no later than July 25, 2008. Please download the application here. Please submit eight (8) copies of each nomination and supporting materials by mail to Katie Hughes at the following address:

ABA Death Penalty Representation Project
22nd Anniversary Event Awards Nomination
740 Fifteenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005

Click below to visit our 22nd Anniversary & Volunteer Recognition Event webpage:

Friday July 11-Sunday July 13
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Annual Capital Punishment Training Conference

By: NAACP
Location: Warrenton, VA

Thursday July 17-Friday July 18 
The Mind & Criminal Defense

By: Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Project
Location: Plano, TX
Contact: Phil Wischkaemper at miglit@aol.com

Saturday July 19
Mitigation

By: Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Project
Location: Plano, TX
Contact: Phil Wischkaemper at miglit@aol.com

Saturday August 2-Thursday August 7 
Bryan Schechmeister Death Penalty Defense College

By: Death Penalty Defense College
Location: Santa Clara, CA
Contact: Ellen Kreitzberg at ekreitzberg@scu.edu

Friday August 22
Expert Witnesses in Capital Cases

By: Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Project
Location: Plano , TX
Contact: Phil Wischkaemper at miglit@aol.com

Friday August 22 -Tuesday August 26
Thirteenth Annual Federal Habeas Corpus Seminar

By: Administrative Office of the US Courts
Location: St. Louis , MO
Contact: Samantha Wadkins at samantha_wadkins@ao.uscourts.gov

The Spring 2008 edition of the Death Penalty Representation Project's newsletter was recently published. To view the first issue of Project Press, please click below.

The Supreme Court held in Kennedy v. Louisiana (No. 07-343, slip op. (Jun. 25, 2008)) that the death penalty for child rape is unconstitutional if the defendants' acts did not cause the death of the victim. To read the full opinion by Justice Kennedy, please click here.

On January 4, 2008 the Nevada Supreme Court issued new standards for capital cases that substantially conform with the 2003 ABA Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Defense Counsel in Death Penalty Cases. The court acted upon recommendation of a commission formed to review problems in the system and in response to the growing caseload of public defenders. Read the Nevada Indigent Defense Standards of Performance here.

The Death Penalty Representation Project hosted its 21st Anniversary & Volunteer Recognition Event in Chicago on September 26, 2007. The two firms honored were Mayer Brown LLP and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP. Click here to see pictures of the event.

The ABA has expressed concerns about a proposed rule that is intended to implement Section 507 of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005. That section of the law offers a drastically streamlined habeas corpus review in death penalty cases to states in exchange for improvements in their post-conviction defense processes. On August 25, 2007 the ABA submitted comments to the Department of Justice. Therein the ABA stated that while the association has not taken a position on the broad policy behind Section 507, the association believes that the department ignores key aspects of the legislation in its proposed rule. According to the ABA, the proposed rule “would allow states to obtain streamlined review without ensuring that capital defendants receive competent counsel (or that such counsel is appropriately compensated) in post-conviction proceedings.” Calling the proposed rule "deeply and fundamentally flawed,” the association said that, the proposed rule disregards established legal benchmarks for how key terms are to be defined and fails to establish uniform standards regarding the content of state applications as well as the criteria the attorney general is to utilize in evaluating applications. In addition, the proposed rule’s notice, comment and review procedures for the applications fall well below agency rulemaking standards under the Administrative Procedure Act and the Due Process Clause. The comments also recommend that the ABA’s Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death Penalty Cases be incorporated into the evaluation process to add objectivity. View the comments here.

During its annual meeting in San Francisco, the American Bar Association presented its Pro Bono Publico Award to Sidley Austin. To view the article published by The New York Law Journal, please click here.