Examples of our human rights work

Death penalty

We are acting for several clients facing the death penalty in the Caribbean and the US. We represent Caribbean clients in their appeals to the Privy Council in London and assist local lawyers representing clients in the US with international law issues and factual investigation.

In 2008 we submitted an Amicus Brief before the US Supreme Court in the case of Patrick Kennedy v Louisiana which decided that the imposition of the death penalty for rape was unconstitutional. The Amicus Brief, on behalf of leading British law associations, scholars, Queen's Counsel and former Law Lords, was referred to in oral argument by the Supreme Court.

We were successful at the Privy Council in London in overturning a death sentence imposed on a Trinidad and Tobago citizen. Leslie Huggins now faces life imprisonment. We act before the Privy Council for another Trinidad and Tobago citizen, Ronald Tiwarie, who is currently facing the death penalty.

We also work closely with the charity Reprieve, established by the lawyer Clive Stafford Smith OBE. We provide the charity with office space and twice a year host joint Amicus and Reprieve training sessions for lawyers intending to spend time in the US volunteering on death penalty cases. We also hosted a Death Penalty Round Table in 2008, involving all the leading charities and lawyers involved in death penalty work.

Additionally, in 2008, six of our future trainee solicitors took the opportunity to spend time as Reprieve interns working on capital cases in the US before starting their training contracts.

In 2008 we represented one of our long-running pro bono clients, Krishna Maharaj (a former death row inmate), in the final stage of his clemency application before the Florida Clemency Board. Mr Maharaj is a British citizen who spent 15 years on Florida's death row before his sentence was overturned and he was given life imprisonment. The final application was sadly rejected by the Florida State Governor, despite a letter in support of the application from Foreign Secretary David Miliband, MP.