Reprieve Turns Ten

At Reprieve we are taking a moment to consider our achievements, and learn lessons where things did not turn out as we hoped, as we celebrate our 10th birthday this year.  

Reprieve was founded in 1999 by Clive Stafford Smith to assist impoverished people facing the death penalty, to encourage volunteers to travel to the United States to work on death penalty cases and to educate the public about issues surrounding capital punishment.

The seeds were sown for the establishment of Reprieve by death penalty defence work already being carried out by Clive and a succession of British volunteers in the Deep South. In 1997, Mississippi prisoner, Willie Russell, came within minutes of execution without a lawyer appointed to represent him. This was the result of the law at the time which said that prisoners must represent themselves in their post conviction appeals. He had to borrow a pencil from a visitor to even be able to write a plea to the courts.

Clive and a team of British volunteers set about demonstrating that individuals on death row were unable to represent themselves for more profound reasons than a shortage of stationery. The volunteer team conducted IQ tests, had prisoners sit the law school admissions test and gathered evidence showing lack of access to the library, witnesses, etc. Their findings forced the state of Mississippi to recognise the absurdity of insisting death row prisoners represent themselves and to grant those facing the death penalty the right to counsel, though this right remains inadequately funded. 

One of the law students involved in this study was Clare Algar who, 12 years on, is Reprieve’s Executive Director. Willie Russell’s newly appointed lawyers were able to file a post conviction brief on his behalf. He remains alive today, awaiting a hearing on whether his mental retardation precludes his execution. There is no doubt that without the work of those volunteers, Willie would be dead. 

Reprieve was created as a charity and initially run by a Board (including longstanding supporters Paul Hamann and Martha Lane Fox) and its one woman powerhouse, Director Andie Lambe. Andie ran the organisation from her flat and generated huge public interest in the cause. In 2004, she was joined by Annabel Harris as Executive Director. Annabel had had a long career at Amnesty International and was responsible for major public education and resource development for Reprieve before she left in 2008. Among the early cases taken on by Reprieve were those of Tracy Housel (Georgia) and Jackie Elliot (Texas), both convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Reprieve lawyers identified blatant flaws in both trials and worked tirelessly to save the lives of these men. Although their efforts in both cases were ultimately unsuccessful (Tracy was executed by lethal injection on 12 March 2002 and Jackie on 4 February 2003), the injustices that were exposed demonstrated how great the need was – and continues to be – for the poor and disadvantaged to be adequately represented. 

Nowhere was this clearer than in the case of Ryan Matthews. By 2004, Ryan – only 17 years old when arrested – had spent five years on death row in Louisiana for a murder he did not commit. He was granted a retrial following detailed investigations by Reprieve, including the discovery of DNA evidence linking another man to the murder. All charges against Ryan were subsequently dropped and he was released. 

Since 1999, Reprieve has expanded its death penalty remit to include the cases of any British national facing the death penalty around the world. For instance, Mirza Tahir Hussein had been on death row in Pakistan for 18 years when we began working on his case with a coalition of organisations. Thanks to representations made to the UK and Pakistan governments by the coalition, and visits from Reprieve lawyer Zachary Katznelson, Tahir was eventually released.

When the lawless enclave at Guantánamo Bay was created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Reprieve immediately responded. Clive Stafford Smith was awarded a Rowntree Visionary grant to work for five years undoing the damage done to global peace and security by US exceptionalism to international human rights norms, and Reprieve was able to assemble a team of lawyers and investigators to come to the rescue of those held outside the reach of the law in Guantánamo and beyond. Reprieve has represented 50 Guantánamo prisoners, who have been released, including all nine British nationals held there. It also represented the five British residents who have been released and it continues to represent the two remaining British residents in Guantánamo. Reprieve also represents a further 31 prisoners in Guantánamo, more than 20 of whom need refuge as they cannot safely return home. 

In the past decade, Reprieve has evolved into a fast-growing frontline NGO with 15 full-time staff and 6 Fellows in the field in 2009. Reprieve occupies donated office space in London, free of charge thanks to the incredible generosity of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and employs a diverse corps of lawyers and investigators, from Harvard graduates to former prisoners, to fight for the rights of the prisoners we represent. Our staff, Fellows and invaluable team of volunteers are currently working on more than 60 cases around the globe. 

Despite the victories of the last ten years, there is so much more to do; indeed it seems we are challenged by new outrages to human rights on an almost daily basis. While in theory human rights are becoming more widely accepted, there remain enclaves – even superpowers – that continue to ignore them. But with a decade of experience behind us and an ever-expanding team of staff, Fellows and volunteers ready to wade into battle on behalf of the most despised people in our society, human rights will not be flouted with impunity.