Australian lawyer Richard Bourke, who works to save prisoners from death row in the US, has told of moments of spirituality, dignity and beauty in some of the toughest legal cases.
The former Melbourne lawyer, currently the director of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, returned to Australia to speak to audiences at TEDxSydney about his work saving clients from the death penalty.
He reflected on 20-hour work days, last-minute appeals, frantic searches for new evidence and, in unsuccessful cases, the difficulty of witnessing final moments his clients spent with their loved ones.
But he said there were happy moments too, when he would meet people who chose not to kill. Several years ago he worked on a drug case involving a triple homicide. He described his client, Chuck, the convicted party, as a “kind, remorseful and spiritual man”.
Bourke said for lawyers working in the US justice system, the key to seeking any penalty less than death is securing the agreement of the families of the victims. In this case all had consented but the mother of the youngest victim, a 17-year-old girl whose last words were “please don’t shoot me I’m pregnant”.
A private meeting was arranged between the mother and her daughter’s killer, at the end of which she hugged him. In court the mother spoke about her loss but also her desire that Chuck be spared the death penalty. “It was a moment of unparalleled dignity and beauty,” Bourke said.
“We’re all going to die – we don’t have a choice about that – but we do choose whether to kill or not.”
Much of Bourke’s work in Louisiana could not be done without the assistance of Australian volunteers. In late 2013, Guardian Australia visited Bourke in his New Orleans office.
The legal centre had once been a recording studio and Bourke was dressed casually in a t-shirt and jeans despite it being December in the northern hemisphere.
A former Melbourne lawyer, he first went to New Orleans in 1998 to volunteer on death row cases at the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center (LCAC) – a non-profit organisation assisting prisoners on death row.
Co-founded in 1983 by Briton Clive Stafford Smith (dubbed by the Telegraph in Britain as the “Knight of the Living Dead” after he was awarded his OBE), the LCAC is often the last hope for prisoners who are facing the death penalty. The centre represents inmates at trial level, and for those already on the row (there are 88 men on death row in Louisiana) investigates the circumstances of their cases – sometimes discovering new evidence and launching appeals.
Beyond the casework, the LCAC also undertakes large-scale projects that have strategic importance.
For its Black Strikes project Australian volunteer Ursula Noyes travelled around Louisiana for nine months investigating instances where prosecutors struck out black jury members to achieve all-white or near all-white juries in death penalty cases.
Much of the LCAC’s work is under-resourced and needs to be propped up by Australian volunteers, says Bourke. There are usually at least two Australians assisting on cases at any one time.
“Coming out here [New Orleans] in 1998, talking to clients and seeing the paltry resources given to their cases was terrible,” he said then. “But seeing what I was able to do as a volunteer made me aware of how great a contribution volunteers could make.”
After volunteering, Bourke returned to Melbourne for a career as a barrister and co-founded Reprieve Australia with Nick Harrington. The organisation manages a volunteer program that has to date sent more than 100 Australian volunteers to work on death penalty cases in the southern US states.
In 2002, Bourke gave up his career at the Melbourne bar to relocate to Louisiana and work full-time on death penalty cases.
“It’s been a life-changing experience for some volunteers,” he says. “Some have gone on to do this work full-time and it’s changed the course of their careers. The ability to participate in this kind of work – for poor people who the state are trying to kill – is transformative. The clients are so deprived of voice, of advocates, of their families and their communities, so for volunteers it’s a tremendous opportunity to make a real difference.”
