Capital Litigation
Sidley’s Capital Litigation Project ensures that inmates incarcerated on death row have access to high-quality legal representation — perhaps for the first time since their arrest. To date, we have represented 24 prisoners at all stages of post-conviction proceedings. Since the project’s inception, more than 235 Sidley partners, counsel, and associates have invested more than 164,000 hours in these cases. Sidley’s representation of inmates on Alabama’s death row has been greatly supported by the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit based in Montgomery, Alabama.
“The Equal Justice Initiative continues to be energized by the level of diligence, compassion, and skill that Sidley’s lawyers demonstrate in their death penalty cases. When other law firms are reluctant to take even one capital case, we point to Sidley’s Capital Litigation Project as the example of how it can be done successfully with many clients. Sidley’s commitment to fighting for fairness and due process on behalf of people who are on death row in Alabama has created optimism for everyone concerned about justice in Alabama.”
— Randy Susskind, Deputy Director, Equal Justice Initiative
Sidley Capital Litigation Client Wins Relief
After nearly 16 years of litigation, a cross-office team finally won relief for our pro bono client in the 11th Circuit. The court’s decision invalidates our client’s death sentence because he was deprived the effective assistance of counsel during the sentencing phase of his trial. Assuming the decision stands, he will be entitled to a resentencing in Alabama state court.
Our client’s ineffective-assistance claim followed an unfortunate but not uncommon pattern. In the run-up to trial, our client’s lawyers asked the trial court for approximately $3,500 to hire a neuropsychologist to evaluate him and help prepare a mitigation case to avoid the death penalty. The court granted the request and appointed an expert to assist counsel with preparing a mitigation case. But, unfortunately, trial counsel never contacted the expert and never used the funds they had fought so hard to get.
A Sidley team filed an amended petition for post-conviction relief on our client’s behalf in 2006, arguing that, among other things, trial counsel was constitutionally ineffective for failing to even contact the expert. The Alabama state court rejected the claim because trial counsel did not testify during the proceedings. Sidley appealed the state court’s decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court ultimately denied our client’s petition for a writ of certiorari, with Justices Ginsburg, Kagan, and Sotomayor dissenting. In his federal habeas proceedings, a unanimous panel of the 11th Circuit granted our client a writ of habeas corpus on his ineffective-assistance claim, effectively taking him off death row.
A Victory for Sidley Client in Alabama
Sidley began representing our client, an inmate on death row in Alabama, in 2005. After post-conviction proceedings in Alabama, including an in-person hearing in 2010, Sidley filed a habeas petition in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama arguing, among other things, ineffective assistance of counsel during the guilt and penalty phases of the trial. In March 2020, the court issued a 179-page decision granting Sidley’s petition with respect to the penalty phase of the trial.
Another Step Forward in Capital Litigation Case
Sidley obtained an appellate victory for Steven Petric, an Alabama death row inmate who was convicted of capital murder in 2009. In August 2020, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals affirmed a 2017 Jefferson County (Alabama) Circuit Court’s decision that found trial counsel ineffective and granted the defendant a new trial. The Alabama Supreme Court denied the state’s petition for writ of certiorari on February 19, 2021. Sidley has represented this client from the inception of his post-conviction claim in 2015.
