Lucy Larkins

As a Reprieve Fellow 2009, Lucy will work at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center to address the plight of mentally ill defendants facing capital punishment in Louisiana.

Lucy graduated from the University of Melbourne, Australia, with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws (Hons). While at law school, she researched claims of wrongful conviction with the Innocence Project and was Assistant Editor of the Melbourne University Law Review. She completed the practical side of her training with a leading commercial law firm and is qualified to practise law in Australia.

After finishing her studies, Lucy travelled to the United States and spent four months volunteering at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center - a non-profit law office that represents people facing the death penalty. She later returned to spend a year as the Center's volunteer Client Welfare Coordinator, where her work focused on improving the conditions of people on death row or serving life sentences.

Lucy's current project aims to improve the conditions of confinement for seriously mentally ill capital defendants, to arm lawyers with the tools and training required to better serve mentally ill clients, and to ensure that mentally ill defendants who are facing the death penalty are properly represented and assessed at competency hearings.

Capital defendants suffering from severe mental illness are especially vulnerable in Louisiana's death penalty system. From arrest, through to the determination of competency to stand trial, and then throughout the trial process itself, a person's mental illness affects every stage of their case and their risk of being sentenced to death.