Post by Anja on Jun 10, 2006 20:29:40 GMT -5
Atlanta Attorney Fights for Prisoners' Rights
"Fighting for Life in the Death Belt," a movie that was scheduled to
premiere in Atlanta on Friday night, is an inside look at the efforts of
Stephen B. Bright and other lawyers at the Southern Center for Human
Rights to save the lives of two clients on death row.
Bright ran the public interest law firm for 23 years until staff attorney
Lisa L. Kung took over as director in January to free him up for full-time
lawyering and part-time teaching.
A lot of people think he's left the prison rights group entirely, he said
over pancakes, scrambled eggs and a continually refilled cup of coffee at
the Landmark Diner in Fairlie-Poplar, a block from the Southern Center's
office in Atlanta.
"Everybody thinks I've retired -- like I'm in a rocking chair or
something," he said in disbelief. At 57, he still looks boyish and
energetic.
Bright now is the Southern Center's president and senior counsel. He said
he wanted to be just a staff attorney -- but the board made him take a
title. "I like senior counsel," he said enthusiastically, "but not
president. That was a board thing."
He's enjoying his new role -- especially now that school is out and he can
focus on litigation. For the past 13 years, he's taught a course every
spring semester at Yale Law School, called simply "Capital Punishment."
The no-frills title reflects Bright's utilitarian approach to running a
prison rights group. In his 24 years at the Southern Center, he's overseen
the representation of hundreds of people on death row and spearheaded
numerous suits against prisons and jails.
In Georgia and Alabama, 73 people have been executed since the death
penalty was reinstated in 1976. Six of them were Bright's clients.
I asked Bright what he's working on now. "My main case is the Fulton
County Jail -- which, of course, I can never escape. Even while I was in
Chicago I was sending out letters," he said. (He was in Chicago recently
to teach lawyers how to litigate death penalty cases at DePaul
University's Clarence Darrow Death Penalty Defense College.)
The Southern Center most recently sued the jail in June 2004, claiming it
was dangerously overcrowded and unsanitary. A January consent order
stipulated that the jail would reduce the size of the population to 2,250
inmates (it was designed to house about 1,400), increase the number of
guards and massively overhaul the deteriorating facility.
Bright estimated that keeping an eye on the Fulton jail takes about a
third of his time. "Now that I've got more time, I can go more often. I'm
sure the sheriff will be pleased.
He smiled. "Well, we're helping them. That's what we tell them.
"Unfortunately with jails, a lot doesn't happen without the prodding of
the federal court," he added.
The jail has added guards, and the Fulton County Commission in May
appropriated $55 million to improve the facility.
But overcrowding remains a problem. Last week Bright received letters from
inmates on the jail's fifth floor who said they were placed on lockdown
with three people to a cell, no air conditioning and no showers on May 26
-- and told it would last 45 days. That day one of the inmates was
assaulted by 14 other men and ended up at Grady Hospital. (Fulton jail
spokesperson Nikita Hightower said the incident is under investigation.)
"We hear about a lot of assaults. If the AC isn't working and no one is
getting showers -- and you put three men in a cell and lock it down, it's
a bad situation. The body odor and the general stench in the place is the
sort of thing that's going to lead to problems," Bright said.
On Monday, Bright learned that the lockdown had been lifted and that
almost all of the 3-person cells had been reduced to 2 inmates.
NO ONE ELSE TO SUE PRISONS
Lawsuits to improve prison conditions and inmate representation are an
important part of the Southern Center's practice. The group filed a series
of lawsuits over poor indigent representation that spurred the creation of
Georgia's 1st comprehensive public defender program, which launched in
January 2005.
Bright said the new PD system, which includes a capital defender office,
is the biggest and best change he's seen in his 24 years working for
better indigent representation. "Now we have somebody who doesn't do
anything but death penalty law. It's a huge difference to have an office
like that," he said of the state's capital defender program, which is led
by Southern Center alumnus Christopher Adams.
But Bright pointed out the new PD program does not improve prison
conditions.
"There is no one else suing prisons in Georgia," he said, explaining that
legal services lawyers cannot represent prisoners in any capacity -- even
for divorces or wills. Congress proscribed legal aid organizations
receiving government funding from prison litigation in 1996, but the ban
does not affect the Southern Center, which is privately funded.
I asked Bright how the Southern Center decides what jails and prisons to
sue. "We go to places where we think the need is greatest and where
there's nobody else to do it."
"For example, when we hear of HIV-positive men in Limestone [Prison] being
kept in a warehouse in the prison and getting bitten by brown recluse
spiders and not getting their medicine -- that's life threatening. So we
work on that," he said, referring to the Southern Center's 2002 suit
against the Alabama prison, where HIV-positive prisoners died from lack of
care.
"When we sued the Fulton jail in the summer of 2004, we were not really in
the position to take on a new case. But the jail was just so bad."
Bright is handling 5 death penalty cases in addition to the jail suit and
also spends a lot of time mentoring younger lawyers on their cases. The
group handles between 30 and 40 capital cases at any one time, he said,
and concentrates its efforts on Georgia and Alabama because that is where
the need is greatest -- and still within driving distance.
A FATEFUL PHONE CALL
Bright started doing death penalty work because of a phone call from
Atlanta. He was 30 at the time and in Washington, D.C., running the legal
clinic for five law schools there when Patsy Morris, an ACLU volunteer in
Atlanta, called one day in 1979 to ask him to take a death penalty case.
"I said, 'I'm in D.C. -- I don't even do death penalty work,' and gave her
a bunch of other reasons why I couldn't do it. 'Why me?' I asked." He
laughed at the memory. "She said they would take anybody they could get. I
told her that flattery will get you everywhere."
She sent him the condemned man's file, including the trial transcript. "I
was expecting boxes and boxes. I was thinking a Ryder truck would be
pulling up. The folder I got from Patsy was two inches thick," Bright said
in disbelief. "I was stunned. I could not believe someone could be
sentenced to death on that. I had students in my clinic trying shoplifting
cases better than this."
When he later met his client, he discovered the man was schizophrenic, but
there was not a word about the man's mental illness in the trial
transcript. The man now is serving a life sentence.
After that case, he said, "Patsy realized we were a soft touch. She would
call periodically, asking us to come down and handle a hearing." The other
lawyer was Bob Morin, who started doing death penalty cases with Bright.
In 1982 the two withdrew their retirement savings, loaded up a U-Haul and
drove to Atlanta to join the Southern Center, which launched in 1976,
after the return of the death penalty.
Bright arrived to find the program bankrupt. He had to write a personal
check to the Healey Building for the next month's rent and didn't draw a
paycheck for 9 months.
At that time, the staff consisted of him, Morin and one other lawyer. Now
it has 11 lawyers and a staff of 26.
Bright has raised enough money over the years to get the Southern Center
on a more stable footing, but he views fund raising more as a necessary
evil than a fine art. Even so, the center's budget is now $1.7 million.
"It's a two-pronged strategy. We raise what we can, and we don't spend
much," he said. "I'm better at not spending money than at raising money."
Nobody on staff -- including Bright -- gets paid more than $39,000 a year.
Most of the center's money comes from Washington, not Atlanta. Bright said
that many of his old public defender colleagues have become partners at
big D.C. firms and write checks, plus the center gets money from other
individuals and foundations. "A lot of it is lucky breaks and the kindness
of strangers," he said.
The Southern Center holds an annual fund-raising dinner in Washington, and
I asked Bright why it didn't have one in Atlanta as well. He blanched a
bit. "It takes all our efforts just to put on the one in Washington," he
demurred.
"You could make it easy and just have food from the Varsity," I suggested.
He brightened and told me he'd suggested serving collard greens and corn
bread at the Washington banquet as a money-saving change of pace from
rubber chicken, but that his board vetoed the idea.
I told him I could tell from the documentary's interior scenes of the
Southern Center's office that they weren't spending any money on
furniture.
He looked pleased that I'd noticed. "It's early-American junkyard," he
said proudly of the ragtag collection of elderly desks, chairs and filing
cabinets.
I asked him if he's going to retire when he turns 65.
He looked shocked: "Only if all the injustices have been corrected by
then.
"And that seems unlikely," he added.
(source: Fulton County Daily Report)
"Fighting for Life in the Death Belt," a movie that was scheduled to
premiere in Atlanta on Friday night, is an inside look at the efforts of
Stephen B. Bright and other lawyers at the Southern Center for Human
Rights to save the lives of two clients on death row.
Bright ran the public interest law firm for 23 years until staff attorney
Lisa L. Kung took over as director in January to free him up for full-time
lawyering and part-time teaching.
A lot of people think he's left the prison rights group entirely, he said
over pancakes, scrambled eggs and a continually refilled cup of coffee at
the Landmark Diner in Fairlie-Poplar, a block from the Southern Center's
office in Atlanta.
"Everybody thinks I've retired -- like I'm in a rocking chair or
something," he said in disbelief. At 57, he still looks boyish and
energetic.
Bright now is the Southern Center's president and senior counsel. He said
he wanted to be just a staff attorney -- but the board made him take a
title. "I like senior counsel," he said enthusiastically, "but not
president. That was a board thing."
He's enjoying his new role -- especially now that school is out and he can
focus on litigation. For the past 13 years, he's taught a course every
spring semester at Yale Law School, called simply "Capital Punishment."
The no-frills title reflects Bright's utilitarian approach to running a
prison rights group. In his 24 years at the Southern Center, he's overseen
the representation of hundreds of people on death row and spearheaded
numerous suits against prisons and jails.
In Georgia and Alabama, 73 people have been executed since the death
penalty was reinstated in 1976. Six of them were Bright's clients.
I asked Bright what he's working on now. "My main case is the Fulton
County Jail -- which, of course, I can never escape. Even while I was in
Chicago I was sending out letters," he said. (He was in Chicago recently
to teach lawyers how to litigate death penalty cases at DePaul
University's Clarence Darrow Death Penalty Defense College.)
The Southern Center most recently sued the jail in June 2004, claiming it
was dangerously overcrowded and unsanitary. A January consent order
stipulated that the jail would reduce the size of the population to 2,250
inmates (it was designed to house about 1,400), increase the number of
guards and massively overhaul the deteriorating facility.
Bright estimated that keeping an eye on the Fulton jail takes about a
third of his time. "Now that I've got more time, I can go more often. I'm
sure the sheriff will be pleased.
He smiled. "Well, we're helping them. That's what we tell them.
"Unfortunately with jails, a lot doesn't happen without the prodding of
the federal court," he added.
The jail has added guards, and the Fulton County Commission in May
appropriated $55 million to improve the facility.
But overcrowding remains a problem. Last week Bright received letters from
inmates on the jail's fifth floor who said they were placed on lockdown
with three people to a cell, no air conditioning and no showers on May 26
-- and told it would last 45 days. That day one of the inmates was
assaulted by 14 other men and ended up at Grady Hospital. (Fulton jail
spokesperson Nikita Hightower said the incident is under investigation.)
"We hear about a lot of assaults. If the AC isn't working and no one is
getting showers -- and you put three men in a cell and lock it down, it's
a bad situation. The body odor and the general stench in the place is the
sort of thing that's going to lead to problems," Bright said.
On Monday, Bright learned that the lockdown had been lifted and that
almost all of the 3-person cells had been reduced to 2 inmates.
NO ONE ELSE TO SUE PRISONS
Lawsuits to improve prison conditions and inmate representation are an
important part of the Southern Center's practice. The group filed a series
of lawsuits over poor indigent representation that spurred the creation of
Georgia's 1st comprehensive public defender program, which launched in
January 2005.
Bright said the new PD system, which includes a capital defender office,
is the biggest and best change he's seen in his 24 years working for
better indigent representation. "Now we have somebody who doesn't do
anything but death penalty law. It's a huge difference to have an office
like that," he said of the state's capital defender program, which is led
by Southern Center alumnus Christopher Adams.
But Bright pointed out the new PD program does not improve prison
conditions.
"There is no one else suing prisons in Georgia," he said, explaining that
legal services lawyers cannot represent prisoners in any capacity -- even
for divorces or wills. Congress proscribed legal aid organizations
receiving government funding from prison litigation in 1996, but the ban
does not affect the Southern Center, which is privately funded.
I asked Bright how the Southern Center decides what jails and prisons to
sue. "We go to places where we think the need is greatest and where
there's nobody else to do it."
"For example, when we hear of HIV-positive men in Limestone [Prison] being
kept in a warehouse in the prison and getting bitten by brown recluse
spiders and not getting their medicine -- that's life threatening. So we
work on that," he said, referring to the Southern Center's 2002 suit
against the Alabama prison, where HIV-positive prisoners died from lack of
care.
"When we sued the Fulton jail in the summer of 2004, we were not really in
the position to take on a new case. But the jail was just so bad."
Bright is handling 5 death penalty cases in addition to the jail suit and
also spends a lot of time mentoring younger lawyers on their cases. The
group handles between 30 and 40 capital cases at any one time, he said,
and concentrates its efforts on Georgia and Alabama because that is where
the need is greatest -- and still within driving distance.
A FATEFUL PHONE CALL
Bright started doing death penalty work because of a phone call from
Atlanta. He was 30 at the time and in Washington, D.C., running the legal
clinic for five law schools there when Patsy Morris, an ACLU volunteer in
Atlanta, called one day in 1979 to ask him to take a death penalty case.
"I said, 'I'm in D.C. -- I don't even do death penalty work,' and gave her
a bunch of other reasons why I couldn't do it. 'Why me?' I asked." He
laughed at the memory. "She said they would take anybody they could get. I
told her that flattery will get you everywhere."
She sent him the condemned man's file, including the trial transcript. "I
was expecting boxes and boxes. I was thinking a Ryder truck would be
pulling up. The folder I got from Patsy was two inches thick," Bright said
in disbelief. "I was stunned. I could not believe someone could be
sentenced to death on that. I had students in my clinic trying shoplifting
cases better than this."
When he later met his client, he discovered the man was schizophrenic, but
there was not a word about the man's mental illness in the trial
transcript. The man now is serving a life sentence.
After that case, he said, "Patsy realized we were a soft touch. She would
call periodically, asking us to come down and handle a hearing." The other
lawyer was Bob Morin, who started doing death penalty cases with Bright.
In 1982 the two withdrew their retirement savings, loaded up a U-Haul and
drove to Atlanta to join the Southern Center, which launched in 1976,
after the return of the death penalty.
Bright arrived to find the program bankrupt. He had to write a personal
check to the Healey Building for the next month's rent and didn't draw a
paycheck for 9 months.
At that time, the staff consisted of him, Morin and one other lawyer. Now
it has 11 lawyers and a staff of 26.
Bright has raised enough money over the years to get the Southern Center
on a more stable footing, but he views fund raising more as a necessary
evil than a fine art. Even so, the center's budget is now $1.7 million.
"It's a two-pronged strategy. We raise what we can, and we don't spend
much," he said. "I'm better at not spending money than at raising money."
Nobody on staff -- including Bright -- gets paid more than $39,000 a year.
Most of the center's money comes from Washington, not Atlanta. Bright said
that many of his old public defender colleagues have become partners at
big D.C. firms and write checks, plus the center gets money from other
individuals and foundations. "A lot of it is lucky breaks and the kindness
of strangers," he said.
The Southern Center holds an annual fund-raising dinner in Washington, and
I asked Bright why it didn't have one in Atlanta as well. He blanched a
bit. "It takes all our efforts just to put on the one in Washington," he
demurred.
"You could make it easy and just have food from the Varsity," I suggested.
He brightened and told me he'd suggested serving collard greens and corn
bread at the Washington banquet as a money-saving change of pace from
rubber chicken, but that his board vetoed the idea.
I told him I could tell from the documentary's interior scenes of the
Southern Center's office that they weren't spending any money on
furniture.
He looked pleased that I'd noticed. "It's early-American junkyard," he
said proudly of the ragtag collection of elderly desks, chairs and filing
cabinets.
I asked him if he's going to retire when he turns 65.
He looked shocked: "Only if all the injustices have been corrected by
then.
"And that seems unlikely," he added.
(source: Fulton County Daily Report)