Aiding inmates facing death

UC-Berkeleywill open a clinic at Boalt Hall to provide representation to the condemned and deal with growing concerns of fairness and lack of qualified death row lawyers.

California's first university-run clinic to represent death row inmates, part of a growing national trend to help provide better legal representation for the condemned, will open this year at Boalt Hall law school in Berkeley. With million-dollar backing from a pair of Silicon Valley death-penalty opponents, law school officials decided to launch the clinic because of mounting concerns about fairness in the capital punishment system and California's chronic shortage of lawyers who are qualified and willing to handle death row appeals. Charles Weisselberg, a law professor and death penalty expert who will help run the program, said Thursday that the clinic is likely to start off with two capital cases, one in the California Supreme Court and another in the federal courts. The clinic also plans to focus on cases that emerge from the Northern California courts, which have generated hundreds of death penalty convictions since capital punishment was reinstated in 1978. There are more than 580 inmates on California's death row, the largest in the nation. At least 150 of them are without lawyers, a key factor in delays that have long plagued the state's capital punishment system. ``We may look for cases that present important issues,'' Weisselberg said. ``We're going to provide first-rate representation to a group of clients that really need help.'' The UC-Berkeley program is similar in some respects to projects set up at universities elsewhere, such as a clinic at Northwestern University that has been credited with helping expose examples of innocent men being sent to that state's death row. The Western School of Law in San Diego also has set up what advocates call an innocence project to handle appeals, including those of condemned inmates. However, Weisselberg said the Berkeley project will not be limited to cases in which the inmate is believed to be innocent, but will focus more on broader questions surrounding the death penalty, such as poor trial lawyering, prosecutorial misconduct and racial disparities in the system. The clinic intends to hire an experienced specialist in capital appeals to supervise law students, who will investigate old cases, many of which languish in the courts for 10 to 20 years. .33The American Bar Association, among others, has called for a national moratorium on executions until the condemned can be guaranteed better legal representation. At a time when lawyers and the media already have explored problems in states such as Illinois, Texas and Mississippi, law school officials hope the Boalt program will shed further light on California's death penalty system. The students also are eager to dive into the complex world of death penalty litigation. ``It's a great learning experience for us,'' said Sarah Ray, a first-year law school student. ``But, more importantly, it affords some legal representation and a voice to people who don't have the resources or the ability to speak for themselves.'' The clinic is being funded by two valley-based death penalty opponents, entrepreneur Peter Davies and Nick McKeown, a Berkeley alumnus and now a Stanford University engineering and computer science professor. The two men have donated $1 million and plan to fund the clinic for five years. Davies declined comment on his donation. McKeown, however, said he and Davies have been exploring ways to fund programs that reflect their opposition to capital punishment, and considered Boalt's approach to setting up specialized clinics an ideal opportunity. Boalt Hall School of Law also last year established a clinic to handle cutting-edge cyberlaw issues. ``This is not about us,'' McKeown said. ``It's about setting something up that gives good representation to those on death row. It seems like a good way to provide good representation, highlight the problem and challenge the notion of the death penalty itself.''