Rare Breed - profiles of three defense lawyers who work death penalty cases, Stephen Bright, Bryan Stevenson, and John Holderidge

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 5, 2001 by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy

Death penalty lawyers defend rights of politically invisible

Bryan Stevenson graduated from Harvard University magna cum laude with a bachelor's in philosophy, got his master's in government, picked up a law degree and then headed south to represent poor people. An obviously talented attorney, he could be hauling in a six-digit income filing briefs for corporate executives. Instead, for about $30,000 a year, he juggles an overwhelming caseload of capital clients, defending those whom an entire state is gearing up to kill.

In a country of 1 million attorneys, there are approximately 50 who work for private, nonprofit agencies specializing in capital representation. Many work in states where political will for executions is high and the commitment to public defender programs nonexistent. They defend the innocent and the very guilty. They work hard to understand the lives of people who take the lives of others.

"They are deeply committed people who have chosen to make their mark on this world," said Northwestern University law professor Larry Marshall. "They could have been priests. They could have been rabbis."

Or rescue workers. One capital trial attorney, an expert in the field, likened his work to the Underground Railroad. "We're trying to save people any way we can," he said. The analogy is too limited. Many of these experts in capital defense do more than fight for the life of a particular client. An extremely articulate bunch, they lecture, teach, write and submit well-argued appeals for the rights of a politically invisible and often despised populace. Sometimes their appeals are reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Today death penalty lawyers are a rare though increasingly much-needed breed. Greater restrictions on the law governing the filing of habeas corpus petitions -- a potentially life-saving procedure for capital clients -- coupled with the termination of federal funds for death penalty resource centers have left many on death row without access to desperately needed counsel. In addition, private firms, once willing to do pro bono work for a capital client, now consider these cases to be a costly sinkhole and are reluctant to take them on.

In recent weeks, NCR interviewed three capital trial lawyers credited with considerable accomplishments in their field. Their stories, remarkable in themselves, provide a unique insider's commentary on the implementation of the death penalty in America.

Stephen Bright always knew he wanted to represent poor people. After graduating from the University of Kentucky School of Law in 1975, he worked for legal services in the coal-fields of Appalachia. Even as a kid, he was appalled by the death penalty, but capital representation was far from his mind until he "got the call" in 1978 to help out with a death penalty case in Georgia. He has remained there ever since, representing indigent clients, some with IQ's as low as 70 or 80, in a state where the capital defender program is "just a shell of its former self."

"The legal system," he said, "is so fundamentally unfair to the poor." And Bright is a stickler for fairness, quick to call foul at every inequity in the duel between defendant and the state that prosecutes. Outrage and a love of the fight keep him going. "I'm wearing my heart out in pursuit of the unobtainable," he admitted, "but I wouldn't be anywhere else."

The executive director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, based in Atlanta since 1982, Bright also teaches courses on the death penalty and criminal law at Harvard, Yale and Emory law schools. Considered one of the country's leading experts on capital representation, he has received several awards in the last decade for his work as legal advocate for the poor. He has written extensively on criminal justice and judicial independence, testified before the U.S. House and Senate and worked with the American Bar Association Task Force to provide recommendations to Congress for improving the fairness of the death penalty process.

Established in 1976, the center is a public interest legal project that provides representation throughout the South for prisoners and persons facing the death penalty. It operates on an annual budget of less than $1 million, receives no government funding and is supported by individuals, law firms and foundations, and by quite a bit of pro-bono lawyering.

The center's nine attorneys are each paid $30,000 a year. Bright, who is currently subsidized by a grant from the Lindhurst Foundation, receives no salary from the center. Incomes are deliberately kept modest, he said, "to free up money for trial work. There is so much that needs to be done and so little resources. Besides," he adds, "there is no divine right of lawyers to live like kings. They can live like plenty of other people who make it on a modest salary."

The center operates in a region where the quality of capital representation is "dismal," said Bright. People facing executions are assigned lawyers who lack expertise and funds. Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, Mississippi and Texas have no state-funded public defender programs, although the latter two have recently allotted some funding for indigent defense. He finds it "appalling" that the "states most willing to execute people" are not willing to pay for adequate counsel. "In those states," he said, "it is better to be rich and guilty than poor and innocent because the poor are represented by court-appointed lawyers who often lack the skill, resources and, on occasion, even the inclination to defend a case properly."