Death Row Inmates Face Lack of Lawyers 

Chronicle News Services 5jul01

Dozens of death row inmates lack lawyers for their post-conviction appeals, in part because private law firms increasingly are unwilling to take on burdensome, expensive and emotionally wrenching capital cases, death penalty lawyers say.

The shortage of counsel to help death row inmates file state appeals and federal habeas corpus petitions challenging their convictions and sentences places them at risk of missing crucial deadlines, possibly preventing them from raising appeal issues.

The situation has potentially dire consequences, experts say, since two of three appealed death sentences are set aside because of defense lawyers' errors at trial or prosecutorial misconduct, according to the most comprehensive death penalty study to date by lawyers and criminologists at Columbia University.

"We have a crisis," said Elisabeth Semcl, director of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Representation Project, which seeks law firms to represent death row defendants. "Firms can save lives and make a difference, and they're not doing enough."

There are other reasons for the shortage of counsel, including swelling death row populations, tile growing complexity of tile law governing habeas corpus petitions and the termination in 1995 of government funding for public defender organizations.

Nonetheless, many lawyers say that increased profit pressures and large associate pay raises are deterring firms from taking on death row cases.