ByJA HOFF A
Given the kind of new
h domin ted Bry n
Steven n' line of wor thi
prin , Mr. Steven on might
r on bly con ider ch ngin
reer . it h ppen ,
on bien h never been
h I1mar of hi lin of wor .
He repre ent pri oner ori
Alab ma' death row, nd tri
to per uade lawyers at well­
heeled firm that they hould do
the same.
It appears to be a losing battle.
Last month, editori 1 in
Alab ma papers cheered the
tate attorney general for chal­
lenging state supreme court
decision overturning the death
penalty for a 15-year-old.
Last wee , Gov. Bill Clinton
denied Clemency to an Arkansas
man, who died by lethal injec­
tion - the tenth prisoner to be
executed in the United States
since March 1. The Supreme
Court ruled on recently that.
Federal courts do not have to
grant hearings if a prisoner's
lawyer had failed to present per­
tinent new facts in a state appeal
- a blow to lawyers like Mr.
Stevenson, who specializes in
appeal. .
A Virginia coal miner
scheduled to die on May 20 al­
ready lost one big Supreme
Court decision - it held that he
was not entitled to a Federal
Court hearing because his
lawyer filed a state appeal a day
too late ..
"The Justices treat us as legal
terrorists abusing the Federal
courts toward unlawful ends,"
ndwic m chin , why it'
dif cult to entice I ye
capi I rticul rly rom
one of th e cution-e ger
outh rn t t th t compri e
wh t d th pen Ity opponen
11 "the De thbelt."
"M ny I rg I w firms did
r pond w 11 in the 0'," h
id. "But it' burde ome,
motion lly nd fin ncially.
Partner are concerned bout
public im ge nd expense, and
the e clients are ociety' most
de pised people. The firms h d
their one ca e and they're not
willing to do another."
The reality of death row
litigation, he said, is a far from
the popular notion that legal
cab Is dream up court-clogging
schemes to delay executions
endlessly. At an initial meeting
with a client, he' said, the
prisoner pologized, aying, "I
don't know how to ct: it's the
first time I've been in the visiting
room in four and a half years. "
A graduate of Harvard Law
School and the Kennedy School
of Government, Mr. Stevenson,
32 years old, earns $25,000 a
year as executive director of the
fledging Alabama Capital Rep­
resentation Resource Center.
He supervises six even younger
lawyers and associates from 30
firms who donate their time.
They represent 124 prisoners on
death row, and 120 other defen­
dants.
Mr. Stevenson had never met
a lawyer before he, went to Har­
vard: "I wasraised in atown of
1,500 in rural Delaware. But my
parents and grandparents would
talk about 'those lawyers' com­
ing in here and changing our
Talking big firms into
. taking death row
cases isn't easy.
'Partners are
concerned about public
image and expense,
.and these clients are
,society's most
despised, people.'
Mr. Stevenson said. "It used to
be that if you took these cases,
the judiciary would congratulate
you on your commitment."
Mr. Stevenson scarcely fits
'the profile of a legal terrorist.
He is soft-spoken and patient,
with a gentleness appropriate for
_ the peculiarly pastoral aspect of
lawyering that has included
holding a client's hand in the last
15 minutes of life.
But his understated manner
can be deceptive. On Martin
Luther King Day this year, he
exhorted the congregation of a
small Black Baptist church in
Georgia to complain to the local
district attorney that an inmate
with an 1.0. of 59 had been rail­
roaded by a virtually all-white
criminal justice system. The
district attorney withdrew his
objections to the sentence being
changed to life without parole.
'Had Their One Case'
Mr. Stevenson was in New
York recently for an NAACP
Legal Defense Fund board meet­
ing. In an empty cafeteria near­
by 'he explained, against the
whirr and thump of soda and
lives, by opening up the school
and the hospital for Black
people."
Through a Harvard course on
race and poverty litigation, he
worked in Atlanta for the
Southern Prisoners' Defense
Committee.
He visited death row and
found his calling.
"I saw lawyers deeply com­
mitted to the work they did and
they went aboutit with a sense
of purpose. And then there were
the clients. I saw guys I'd grown
up with, who I played basketball
with, who didn't get the breaks I
did. They were condemned long
before they got to death row.
"I don't offer them forgive­
ness. But I am prepared to say,
'I believe your life has value,
regardle of what anyone else
says. "
In 1989 he went to Alabama,
where death row inmates were
virtually unrepresented and
judges are allowed to overturn
jury entences. In the last year,
six "defendants who were sen­
tenced to life without parole by
juries heard judges then senten e
them to death. The state has no
public defenders, and court-ap-
didn't really love the person.
Prosecutors hold out the promise
that survivors will feel better
when they see him die. But the
loss is no "less."
Bryan Stevenson's uphill bat':'
ties are only becoming more
Sisyphean. The' Supreme Court
recently agreed to address the
question of whether innocence
itself is grounds for post-convic­
tion review in capital cases. Last
week, the Senate Judieiary Com­
mittee confirmed the nomination
of an Alabama assistant attorney
general who is a leading death
penalty advocate to the 11th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals - the
end of the road for many of Mr.
Stevenson's cases.
Bryan A. Stevenson during a visit to New York last month.
Now It's Revenge
These are the stories that Mr.
Stevenson recounts as he speaks
to law firms, law schools and
churches. He rarely debates the
issue of capital punishment itself
- he assumes most people sup­
port it. "From the 50's through
the 70's people believed they
could deter violent crime by
making an example of a few of­
fenders. But you don't hear
about deterrence anymore. Now
they talk about revenge. The
death penalty has become a
repository for people's frustra­
tion about violent crime, a per­
sonalized reduction of the idea
that if you have a problem, you
kill it."
Instead, he focuses on the ad­
ministration of justice. "We talk
about how African-Americans
continue to be excluded from
juries before we ever stan talk­
ing about where our client w
on the night of June 9, 1982.
"I tell church groups we're
filing a motion to disqualify a
judge because he's too racist and
. we want them to testify about
their own experiences. Ana
that's exciting. Because people
get a sense for the first time that
they can speak back to the
criminal justice system.
'He is hardly unsympathetic to
the families of people killed by
his clients: when he was 16, hi
grandfather was murdered. He
believes in punishment, but not
exploiting survivors pain.
People are told if they don't fight
to ee the guy executed that they
The way things are gOing ..
how does he manage to get out ..
of bed in the moming? •
"It's not getting up that's'
hard," he says.
"But some nights it's going to
sleep that's harder. �
•
Fiesta 192
Coming J 19, 20, 21
The Southwest Detroit Business Association and Mexicantown
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pointed lawyers get only $1,000
for research and $20 an hour for
court time.
In the Georgia case he later
won with the church's help, the
trial began at 9 A.M. 'f.he
prosecution rested at 7 P.M. The
defense called no witne ses.
Deliberation began after dinner.
Four and a half hours late, all but
one juror voted to convict. The
dissenting juror was dismissed
by the judge and replaced. Con­
viction followed in minutes. By
1 A.M., the penalty phase began.
By 2 A.M., the defendant was
sentenced to death.
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