Hundreds of inmates in this country face execution without a lawyer who might ensure that they receive the constitutional protections each citizen is guaranteed. That is why we work closely with the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project to provide skilled legal counsel in death penalty cases. Our lawyers have played key roles in successfully litigating capital cases. In the ongoing case of Calvin Stallworth, a man convicted in Alabama of murdering two convenience store clerks, our lawyers have challenged the conviction, claiming, among other things, ineffective assistance of counsel and jury misconduct.
Our lawyers have also influenced the national discourse on the death penalty. Partner and author Scott Turow has led the pro bono defense in death penalty cases, including one in which a condemned man was freed after 11 years behind bars. Following his role on an Illinois death penalty reform commission, Scott became an outspoken death penalty opponent and wrote a book describing how he came to embrace that position.
Representative Engagements
Death Row Inmates Win Important Victories
Sonnenschein attorneys have achieved significant interim victories in 2007 on behalf of two death penalty clients whose cases have been affirmed on appeal but are now being reviewed for relief pursuant to petition for writs of habeas corpus. Calvin Stallworth was convicted and sentenced to death in Alabama in connection with the December 1997 murders of two convenience store clerks in separate incidents. He is currently on death row in Holman Prison in Atmore, Ala. On May 10, 2007, Sonnenschein attorneys won a last ditch effort to challenge Mr. Stallworth’s conviction when a circuit court judge in Baldwin County, Ala., agreed to an evidentiary hearing on several issues, including a novel form of testing of blood residue.
Stallworth's attorneys anticipate that there will be testimony about the effectiveness of mass spectrometry testing that could identify contaminants in blood residue, in what could be a case of first impression. At trial, the police testified that they found a lone blood stain on the inside of a jacket belonging to Mr. Stallworth, but Mr. Stallworth's defense team has questioned the likelihood of an isolated blood stain inside the jacket after such violent crimes, suggesting that the blood might have been planted as evidence by police in an act of foul play. “I would call this a big interim victory because this is the first relief our client has obtained and he has been all the way through the ordinary state appellate procedure, to and including the Alabama Supreme Court,” says one of his attorneys, Jerry Wolf. The defense team, led by Jerry and Mark Flessner, believes the test could provide evidence that the blood on the jacket did not splatter during either of the attacks, but was instead preserved blood that was put on the jacket later. The defense team also includes Daniel Sakaguchi, Matthew Faul, and Tery Gonsalves. The court also agreed to a hearing regarding DNA testing of fingernail residue and hair fibers as well as the defense counsel's failure to call a blood splatter expert.
The Firm also recently won an important interim victory on behalf of another death row inmate at Holman Prison, Kenneth Glenn Thomas, who was convicted in 1986 of murdering an elderly woman. Mr. Thomas had exhausted all of his state court appeals and his state court Rule 32 remedies (akin to a habeas corpus proceeding). Jerry Wolf filed a federal habeas corpus action and, after the case was fully briefed in 2002, added a brief based on the then-newly decided Atkins v. Virginia decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court barred the execution of a person suffering from mental retardation, according to its legal definition. Mr. Thomas’ IQ had been estimated to range from 56 to 70. The Atkins case left it to the states to determine a standard for mental retardation. Most states have yet to do so, but some, like Alabama, have specified that an IQ of 70 or below indicates mental retardation. The federal court recently issued a 289-page opinion rejecting all but the Atkins claim. The court ordered a hearing on mental retardation and required the state to pay for a psychologist and a neurologist and to appoint and pay for a lawyer who understands "psychological jargon." The state-appointed lawyer will serve as local counsel. “It is an important victory because it prolongs Mr. Thomas' life and gives him a chance to avoid the death penalty altogether,” says Jerry, who has led this representation. Barrett Vahle assisted with a motion asking the federal court to conduct the mental retardation hearing rather than remanding it to the state court for hearing as the federal judge originally ordered.
