Posted on Feb 15, 2019
My placement with Amicus lasted from October to January, and as the scheme was both my first trip to the US, as well as my first long term involvement with criminal law, I was apprehensive as to what lay ahead.
The Atlanta office warmly welcomed me, and I immediately felt encouraged to contribute and get involved in the work that the office was undertaking. The office was mainly representing clients pre-trial, some of whom had only recently been in jail, to clients who had been waiting eight years for their cases to get resolved. Most shocking to me was a case that had been overturned by the US Supreme Court and been set for new trial after over 30 years due to racial discrimination at the first trial. I soon learnt that such injustice is part and parcel of the death penalty system.
I was surprised by the range of tasks in which I was involved: I was...
Posted on Jan 31, 2019
Between September and December 2018, I volunteered at the Federal Community Defenders Office in Philadelphia, PA. I was fortunate enough to work on a wide variety of cases, undertaking a range of tasks from researching case law, to reviewing trial transcripts and drafting claims. The clients whose cases I worked on were imprisoned in states across America including Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia and Kentucky.
Towards the end of my placement, the office had submitted a Kings Bench Petition, which is an archaic legal instrument which allows a petition to be heard immediately by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, without having to go through the lower courts first. The petition, whether the death penalty in Pennsylvania is unconstitutional, was accepted in December. Therefore, a great deal of my remaining time in the office was spent doing legal research into old cases...
Posted on Jan 23, 2019
For three months, between September and December 2018, I volunteered in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Although I undertook a range of projects, my main tasks included conducting legal research and summarising mitigation documents. One of my biggest projects included updating a claim regarding the unconstitutionality of the death penalty in Louisiana, which was filed in all cases. This required extensive research and I attended the library at the Supreme Court of Louisiana in order to obtain detailed records regarding the aggravating factors which have been introduced over the years. For the specific cases that I was handling, I attended regular consultations with investigators and mitigation specialists.
During my time in New Orleans, I visited Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) twice. The first time consisted of a social visit with two clients. I had no specific tasks...
Posted on Oct 29, 2018
Gaining experience in a charity like Amicus has been rewarding and enlightening. Seeing the difference that can be made by the smallest of things, and knowing that you are assisting in helping one of the most human centred causes is truly invaluable. Amicus places a huge priority on human value and consciousness and this is something that I personally feel to be something missing or disregarded in a lot of societies and organisations. The Amicus UK office internship has been unbelievably beneficial in providing me with an insight into both charitable work and Human Rights. Having no previous law experience I came into this internship from a Sociological and Philosophical undergrad degree, and carried out my internship alongside my Masters in Global Ethics.
Getting an insight into the American justice system has been incredibly eye opening and has allowed me to...
Posted on Oct 27, 2018
My internship at Amicus was an end in itself. It was neither a CV-filler, nor a time for thumb twiddling. I say this because the work we did whilst I was in Amicus’ London office was both personally fulfilling and also vital for those on Death Row in the US.
As I understand it, capital punishment in the US is wrong for two reasons. First, it is immoral to put someone to death. In the words of Albert Camus, ‘Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders’.
Second, the capital sentencing system in the US is systemically unjust. It is a seam that runs through the whole system, from ineffective legal counsel and rigged jury selection through to the sentencing of minors and those with intellectual disabilities. The list runs on. It is a failed system that is defined by bias and error. This failure destroys lives, particularly those of the poor and of racial...
Posted on Oct 26, 2018
From day one, it became clear that I would not simply be spending three months in the copy room, when fifteen motions were placed on my desk, each requiring a legal memo on the defense and prosecution’s submissions. Throughout the three months, I carried out a range of legal tasks including preparing for cross examinations, drafting letters to be sent to the District Attorney, formatting motions, attending mitigation field trips and legal research. I also attended court regularly to observe various preparation hearings for our clients. This gave me an interesting insight into the differences between the UK and US legal system. Potentially the most startling difference is the ability to have an alleged offender held in jail for years without them even being convicted. A fact that to this day still confuses and worries me.
I learnt so much from the team in Atlanta,...
Posted on Oct 25, 2018
After attending an Amicus ALJ lecture held by Mark George QC, at Northumbria University, my mind was made up. I wanted to and had to undertake this internship! I undertook my 3-month Amicus ALJ internship in Arizona. Those who I worked with were inspirational, motivated, keen to teach and keen to get me involved in as much as they could. All of this made for an unforgettable 3 months.
The work you actually do, I am sure, will differ from office to office but what you can almost certainly expect is a lot scanning, a lot of record digesting and a lot of research. This is not the work that sets the world to rights but it is essential and the clients and attorneys really do appreciate it, because if I did not do it, who else would? This may not seem particularly interesting from what I have said here, but I guarantee you will love the work that you do.
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Posted on Oct 3, 2018
This past summer I worked as a legal intern for the Amicus-St. Louis Short Internship which involved assisting the local legal team in providing pro bono legal representation for cases involving capital punishment and unconstitutional sentencing.
I was intrigued with this opportunity when it was first presented by an Amicus representative at the QMUL campus. I looked at criminal law as being one of the most extreme applications of law, particularly regarding capital punishment, and saw it as an interesting experience to add to my CV. Reflecting back on this short internship, there are many things I experienced, both positive and negative, which I hadn’t expected, or was aware of, going into it.
The first surprise was the focus of the work that we were involved with there. I was one of three summer interns in the office assigned to contribute to an ongoing empirical...
Posted on Oct 2, 2018
I spent the summer in New Orleans, Louisiana working in capital post-conviction and I can genuinely say it was the best summer I have ever had. I have always been passionate about human rights law and the abolition of the death penalty but spending three months working in the area really reinforced to me how important the work capital defense lawyers do. For my part, I was able to assist primarily on a couple of cases. For one client, I examined a lot of expert evidence and helped in the mitigation investigation, identifying important witnesses to interview and collating evidence to support a claim of intellectual disability. For another, I was able to review a large quantity of CCTV evidence, analyse expert testimony and collate a large number of records to go towards the life history of the client.
The most rewarding and humbling part of my placement was meeting...
Posted on Sep 26, 2018
From mid-May to mid-August this summer, I completed an Amicus internship in Tucson, Arizona.
I was placed with a firm which represents clients at both the trial and post conviction stages of a capital case. Throughout my internship I undertook a wide variety of tasks, some slightly monotonous, such as filing and scanning, and others extremely interesting such as attending meetings, undertaking legal research and some drafting of court documents. Although at time monotonous, even the filing and scanning provided the opportunity to read letters from the clients and a wide variety of court documents. The majority of my internship was spent reviewing and digesting records, often amounting to thousands of pages. These were predominantly medical, prison and police records and trial transcripts. This gave me the opportunity to...
Posted on Sep 25, 2018
Posted on Sep 25, 2018
At the end of March 2018, I travelled to New Orleans to undertake a three-month internship. I was fortunate enough to receive the Matrix bursary, which proved incredibly valuable in allowing me to make the most my stay in the Big Easy.
At the office, I helped three clients with their post-conviction appeals. My involvement included compiling evidence to support our clients’ claims, namely that there had been prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, and/or an improperly constituted jury; I assisted with drafting court documents, attended court for part of a two-week evidentiary hearing, and met with clients on death row, either to update them on their case, or as a social visit.
My time in New Orleans impressed on me how human our justice system is; all the cases I encountered suffered from serious...
Posted on Sep 25, 2018
I am a law graduate from Wales who is about to begin the Bar Professional Training Course. For six weeks, during July and August 2018, I was fortunate enough to intern at a US office in St Louis, Missouri.
Whilst interning, my primary role was to assist the organization to build upon the seminal research collected to critically examine the issue of proportionality mainly in capital cases from as far back as 1990 in the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court. The purpose was to highlight any information that signified any form of discrimination against the relevant defendant. Whilst the research was a lengthy process that required sustained concentration, reading these cases was an interesting task as each one encapsulated unique aspects and characteristics of different crimes.
The 22nd Judicial Circuit Court was very accessible. It is a two-minute walk from the entrance to St...
Posted on Sep 25, 2018
Exhilarating, thrilling, invigorating. Perhaps three words you would attribute to visiting a theme park. For me, this is how I would describe my Amicus ALJ internship. I was lucky enough to spend just over 3 months Stateside working on death row cases alongside some of the most motivating, inspiring and hardworking lawyers I have ever met.
An Amicus internship was always a huge reason I wanted to complete my Integrated Masters in Law degree (alongside completing the BPTC and, one day, becoming a barrister). After attending a lecture about Amicus with the brilliant Mark George QC at my university, I could not sleep at night knowing that people were being deprived of their lives after being deprived of due process and I was doing nothing to help stop it. If you think the England and Wales criminal justice system is broken - and it only takes reading The Secret Barrister:...
Posted on Sep 20, 2018
My internship was with an affiliate non-profit organisation of Amicus' in St Louis, Missouri. The internship itself was focused on a research study that has an aim of proving that the use of the death penalty is arbitrary in the state of Missouri. This mainly encompassed working in the Civil Courts, where you would extract the information you thought was relevant to the study, from the selected case files and upload it to the main hard-drive.
The cases themselves were crimes of first degree or second degree murder, at times they were challenging to read as it involved understanding the processes of the US judicial system. It was also a challenge reading the facts of the cases themselves as they could involve a lot of violence and racism - racism was apparent in the judicial process and it was a point that was incredibly frustrating for me. However, this was quite a learning...
Posted on Sep 3, 2018
Posted on Sep 3, 2018
Posted on Mar 13, 2018
Julie takes the time to reflect on her extraordinary experiences in Philadelphia.