death penalty news June 4, 2004
UK / USA: Death Row Lawyer to Return to Britain British lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, who in 20 years has saved hundreds of clients from death rows in the deep south of the US, is returning home to fight for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Stafford-Smith, who runs the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Centre and his wife, Emily Bolton of the Innocence Project of New Orleans, are moving back to England in August. He mentioned their plans in a New Orleans court, when he asked Judge Henry Stafford to set as early a trial date as possible for Ryan Matthews, whose murder conviction was set aside on DNA evidence. ?I?m leaving to go back to England forever in the middle of August. I would like to get Mr Matthews free before then,? he said. A fervent opponent of capital punishment, Stafford-Smith has helped hundreds of of accused and convicted killers stay out of or get off of death rows in Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana. His criticism of prosecutors and Louisiana?s justice system is often biting. His clients have included award-winning inmate journalist Wilbert Rideau, who is awaiting his fourth murder trial, and Leslie Dale Martin, who was executed for rape and murder in 2002. ?I don?t believe a man should be judged by his worst act,? Stafford-Smith said after watching Martin?s lethal injection, the most recent execution in Louisiana. John Sinquefield, an assistant district attorney who handles many capital cases, has been an intense courtroom foe of Stafford-Smith. ?I think he?s wrong on a lot of things, and I think some of his tactics do damage to victims and victims? family members, Sinquefield said. But, he said, ?strangely enough, I believe we?ve grown to become friends? in the course of out-of-court death penalty debates. George Kendall, former head of the The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People Legal Defence and Education Fund, said both Stafford-Smith and Bolton have been extraordinary and enormously valuable. ?Both are tireless champions of the notion that ... everyone is supposed to get a fair shot in court. But most don?t. ?But they both built good organisations to carry on their work,? he said. In England, he said, Bolton will be representing children. Stafford-Smith plans a charity called Justice in Exile, working for people held by the US military in Cuba as possible terrorists. ?I?ll be representing people in Guantanamo ? which one can do as easily in England as we can in this country, given they won?t let us talk to our clients anyhow,? Stafford-Smith said. (source: Scotsman)
