LifeLines Autumn Conference London, October 2007

It is a source of great pride for LifeLines to have as our Patron Clive Stafford Smith OBE and so we were delighted that he was able to take the time to speak at our London conference this year. Joining him were esteemed documentary maker Paul Hamann, who together with Clive brought the documentary 14 Days in May to our screens, thus inspiring Jan Arriens to form LifeLines, and Consultant Psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud.

Jan Arriens introduced Clive. Jan spoke about Edward Earl Johnson, whose execution was the subject of 14 Days in May, describing him as ‘a personable, guileless young man’ and talked about Clive’s role in the documentary that led to the creation of LifeLines.

Clive began speaking with Edward Johnson’s image projected behind him. He said Edward serves to remind him that he had been really blessed in his career because so many of his clients have escaped the death penalty. He used the word ‘blessed’ where it might have been more appropriate to use the word ‘talented’. Paul Hamann later informed us that Clive was an extremely adept lawyer with an impressive success rate. The documentary though was, perhaps, a blessing for Clive. Occurring early on in his career, it was clear from the way Clive spoke about it that it is a beacon that has shone through the years, urging him to fight hard for those successes. Clive described himself at the time of the documentary as ‘very young, very stupid.’ It is fair to say that there was a general naivety among the all people involved. The fact that filming was going on lent an air of unreality to the proceedings. Clive accompanied Edward to the gas chamber and described the way the condemned man himself alluded to the feeling that only then did it start to seem real and that he had half expected someone to say ‘cut’ and the execution to never take place. It was, Clive said, a ‘tremendous privilege’ to be involved with 14 Days in May. Several years later, Clive sued the State of Mississippi over the use of the gas chamber. He chose the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz to file his suit because the Nazis had used the same gas on the prisoners there. At that time, he spoke to Bill Allain, who had been the Governor of Mississippi at the time of Edward’s execution. Allain apologised profusely and expressed a desire to say publicly that he did the wrong thing in not intervening to save Edward. He told Clive that he felt that politicians should never be in the position of making these life and death decisions because they are so heavily politicised. It had been his first tenure and he didn’t feel as if he could stop it. State governors are far from the only people who face difficult death penalty decisions. Clive spoke about jurors he had talked to. Some felt they had made a terrible mistake and some didn’t, but surprisingly, a number of them didn’t even remember sitting on a jury. Clive said that reaching a verdict in a capital case is so traumatic that it is not uncommon for jurors to completely blank out the experience. One juror insisted he had never sentenced anyone to death when records showed he had. Dr Raj Persaud later mentioned that jurors are often confused by extremely complicated instructions. Clive went on to speak about why innocent people were sentenced to death, mentioning the vulnerability of certain prisoners, jail house snitches, incompetence and dishonesty and unreliable evidence. There was some disturbing anecdotal evidence of these factors.

Clive told us about the prisoner with an IQ of 55 who had been found guilty following a trial at which he represented himself; a policeman who would phone a crime hotline giving evidence to support a case he was investigating and then arrest the suspect and claim the reward; lawyers who only spoke with clients for 15 minutes in total before representing them in a death penalty case and whose first words in a death penalty trial were:

 ‘Excuse me, your Honour, could I have a few moments to compose myself? I’ve never been in a courtroom before.’

Clive’s work as a human rights lawyer is not confined to representing those on death row. Clive spoke extensively about his recent endeavours to secure the release of the British residents he represents who have been held without charge for years in Guantanamo Bay. He felt that many of the factors which led to innocent people being confined applied in their cases.

An audience member asked Clive how he keeps it together. Clive immediately replied, ‘Most people would say that I certainly don’t!’ before adding, that he felt lucky to have the chance to do something so meaningful every day.

A pertinent question was what progress, if any, had Clive seen in the 20 years that have passed since the documentary was made. Clive’s response was positive. ‘There’s been huge progress, actually. The fact that so many people have been exonerated who were on death row is hugely important because it is sowing seeds of doubt in the American population. Most battles are fought in the court of public opinion, not a court of law.’ He listed more favourable opinion polls, the fact that juveniles and the mentally disabled are no longer executed and the slowing rate of executions as encouraging developments. That the US Supreme court is examining whether the lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment is, said Clive, ‘a remarkable success and one I wouldn’t have predicted.’

Asked to pick out his career highs and lows, Clive did not hesitate. ‘By far the best moment in my entire career was marrying my wife Emily. And I mean that very sincerely. I’m very lucky.’ Moving on to the down side of his work, Clive said, ‘There have been negatives of course, but we can’t afford to let that get through to us. It has an impact certainly. But you can’t expect world problems to be solved overnight.’

Clive ended with high praise for our organisation. ‘LifeLines, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, is one of the shining stars of what has happened over the last 20 years. It makes the English half of me very proud. What you do is fantastic – keep it up.’

There were some sobering moments when Clive spoke, but he also injected both lively humour and human warmth into what he had to say. Jan Arriens said afterwards of him, ‘One of the fascinating things about Clive is the way he combines the broad sweep with the intensely personal and is able to convey big issues in terms of individual human beings in a way that I think is quite rare.’

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In the afternoon, documentary maker and Chairman of Reprieve Paul Hamann addressed the conference. Paul was able to give us a different perspective on 14 Days in May. He approached 37 States in the US that had the death penalty and most of them didn’t reply or refused to take part. Only Don Cabana in Mississippi agreed to meet him. Although Don was effectively running an execution machine, he wanted to be seen as a humane man and it was apparent to Paul after meeting with him a few times that he was actually against the death penalty. Ironically it was the young student lawyer Clive Stafford Smith who opposed the making of the documentary at first. Paul gave a wry smile as he told us, ‘I had a very difficult evening with Clive. I thought he was a nice liberal like me, but we fell out and his wife was there and she gave me a hard time as well. It was a terrible evening.’ Two years later, when Edward Earl Johnson’s appeals had been exhausted, Paul contacted Clive again, asking if he wanted to be involved. He did. ‘From that moment on, we became really close friends.’ Paul showed a ten minute clip from the film and told us that the BBC had been very supportive despite the film not being cheap to make. Edward had been reluctant to take part at first and Paul had to visit him several times to reassure him. Edward was a poorly educated man and one aspect of these visits made a lasting impression on Paul. ‘When I was a kid at school, I used to play chess and I was pretty good at it. Edward Johnson beat me every time at chess. I thought, I’ll be kind to this poor man, he hasn’t got long left to live, I’ll let him win. But I ended up trying so hard to win and he was thrashing me. One day he said, “Don’t look so depressed. I’ve had 6 years to improve my game!”’

 Another surprise for Paul was that he soon realised Edward was almost certainly innocent. ‘And that made it more difficult to film because we weren’t prepared for that.’ About a week before the execution, they discovered witnesses who could have testified Edward was elsewhere at the time of the killing were turned away from the courthouse. Because this information came to light very late – sadly too late to save Edward – they made a follow-up film, The Journey, in which they identified the man believed to be the real killer. Paul told us this sequel was ‘more difficult to make in many ways’. While they were eager to clear Edward’s name, they didn’t want to put another man on death row. Shockingly, the night 14 Days in May was screened, over 300 people called the BBC to complain and when the film was shown in the US, Don Cabana received hate mail. The reason? Not, as you might expect, because they had watched an innocent young man put to death but because two rabbits had been used to test the gas chamber and their death throes had been unpalatable. For Paul, though, something else was too much to bear. A colleague edited some sections because it felt wrong to him that he was cutting out some of the last moments of Edward’s life. The wrench did not end there. The film was subsequently shown in 24 countries; 23 of those screened the full 90 minute programme, but in the US it was cut down to just 52 minutes. Powerless to stop this, Paul ensured that with future films he would have editorial rights. Paul has gone on to make a series of films about executions in other parts of the world:

Execution of a Teenage Girl, filmed in Iran and about a 16-year-old put to death for going on a date with a married man, won an Amnesty Award;

China’s Killing Fields, about capital punishment in a country that alone puts to death more prisoners than all other executing nations combined, will be screened next spring.

Of 14 Days in May, Paul says, ‘It changed our lives, those of use who made that film.’ Paul was humble when he spoke, but there is no doubt his films bring issues to the forefront of public consciousness. Paul firmly but with a calm dignity expressed his outrage at executions. 14 Days in May unquestionably had a huge impact and the two things that grew from it were LifeLines and Reprieve.

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Later, Dr Raj Persaud spoke at the conference. A well-known consultant psychiatrist, we were treated to his winning media-friendly mix of expertise and wit. He effortlessly combined relevant information with sharp but appropriate humour and despite the serious subject, he ended the day on a high note.

Raj drew attention to the medical details that give cause for concern in the death penalty, including neurobiological evidence that shows the part of the brain that deals with planning and judgement is not properly formed at 18 years and the downfalls of IQ tests as a way of assessing mental competence. He told us that while it is relatively straightforward to ascertain the average IQ of children in a population by taking a sample from schools, sampling problems have resulted in uncertainty about what the normal IQ for an adult is, which makes it difficult to be sure what below average is.

Moving on, Raj acknowledged that those on death row and those who support them experience stress and told us that there are only two types of coping skills: problem solving and emotionally focused coping. With the first, you change the world to make it a less stressful place. The latter involves changing yourself and he used as an example how Terry Waite and John McCarthy during their long captivity being held by terrorists would give lectures to each other as a distraction and to pass the time. He added that which coping strategy to use depended on the situation but also that ‘most of us have a personality disposition to do one or the other.’ So, one inmate might be very involved with their appeals and so be taking the proactive first option, whereas another might put their energies into religious study, reading, writing or art and in doing so focus on their emotional well-being.

Interestingly, Raj told us, ‘The main reason why people end up in emotional trouble is not accounted for by the levels of stress they face, it’s accounted for by the coping response they deploy. And usually, they are off on the fruitless search for the non-existent third option!’ The answer to stressful situations is straightforward. Do you have a solvable problem? If not, choose the other option. Raj was emphatic about this. ‘Research suggests that people can cope with absolutely anything, the most extraordinary stress, but they need to deeply the right coping responses. The people getting the gold medal in the mental stakes, facing enormous stress and surviving, are those who aren’t doing anything particularly complicated. What they have realised, on a conscious or unconscious level, is that there is no third option.’

To finish, Raj shared with us a Zen Buddhist mantra: think of the glass as already broken. Raj explained, ‘The breaking of the glass is a metaphor for the fact that the one constant in the universe is change. All stress arises out of the fact that we discover the universe has changed and the world has become a stressful place and what that requires of us is that we change in response but we find that difficult. Very often, we protest at the change, we find it very difficult to accept the inevitability of change. If we understand it’s inevitable the glass will one day break, better we think of it as already broken and understand the transient nature of the glass.’

What Raj sought to emphasise was that whichever coping response we deploy to our situation regarding the death penalty, it’s important to appreciate the precious, enduring friendships we have. We were so fortunate to have at this conference three different and insightful perspectives on death penalty issues.

Our speakers shared with us legal, media and medical points of view, allowing us to examine the death penalty situation from different angles. Coupled with the opportunity to meet and mingle with other LifeLiners, this made it a hugely enjoyable and successful day.

Helen Keeler

In November 1987 I happened to see a BBC documentary called Fourteen Days in May about the execution of Edward Earl Johnson in Mississippi.  This quietly spoken, thoughtful young man was widely liked and respected.  No one, from the warden to the Chaplains to the other prisoners, wanted him to die.  The agonising inevitability of his execution was dreadful enough, but as well as this there was the totally unexpected humanity of the other prisoners interviewed in the film.  I wrote to thank them for what they had said.  All three replied.  Their names were Leo Edwards, Sam Johnson and John Irving.

The letters were articulate and deeply felt.  I soon realised that I could not write properly to all three and shared them with friends.  LifeLines had begun.

Amnesty International in London enthusiastically supported the idea of a letter-writing organisation.  My Quaker meeting organised a fundraising event, which led to an article in the local newspaper.  From that I learned that Clive Stafford-Smith, the English lawyer in the BBC film, came form a village half an hour's drive away.  We met in Summer 1988.  The journalist who wrote the article, Merrilyn Thomas, was so inspired by the subject that she wrote a book about Edward Earl entitled Life on Death Row.

An article in the Quaker weekly The Friend in 1988 with excerpts from Sam Johnson's letters attracted 25 letter writers.  The article in the Cambridge Evening News produced a similar number of volunteers.  We now had a small organisation, and Clive suggested names of prisoners for us to write to in Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama.  We had found a marvellous secretary in Tori Ross (then Burbridge), who started our newsletter The Wing of Friendship.

In 1990 we held our first conference in Cambridge.  The speaker was the producer and director of Fourteen Days in May, Paul Hamann.  That led to an article in a national newspaper, in response to which over 200 people volunteered to write.

The organisation came into being through an extraordinary series of coincidences, with the right people coming forward at the right time.  There was a sense of rightness and a remarkable flow of energy.  Above all, however, LifeLines survived because of what the prisoners brought to it.  As in the film, we discovered that the discards of US society were human beings who, precisely because they had been through so much, had a great deal to offer and were longing to share.

In the early evening hours of May 20, 1987, I was driving towards Parchman Penitentiary, in Mississippi.  We still had two options - the Supreme Court and the Governor - but it was looking increasingly as if our efforts on behalf of Edward Earl Johnson would be in vain and he would die in the execution chamber that night.  I found this difficult to grasp, as the Edward I knew was the antithesis of an irredeemable killer.  Driving a long, I tuned into a shock jock on the local radio who was taking calls from his audience - none knew Edward, none cared to question his guilt, and most voiced their opinion that he should die in as painful away as possible.

The physical sense of hugging Edward later that night, and saying goodbye inside the gas chamber, has never left me.  In his documentary 14 Days in May, Paul Hamann captured the uncontrolled anger I felt at the subsequent press conference.  At that moment I felt, in Auden's words that "nothing now can ever come to any good".

Fortunately I was wrong.  LifeLines grew directly out of Edward's death, and it would make him proud to know that his senseless death achieved so much good.

Working with the condemned does not win popularity contests.  Your Death Row friend is so hated that society wants to strap him down and take his life.  Yet it is the very fact that our clients are so swamped by hate that we choose to get involved. 

All benevolence is admirable, but one only has to look at the top ten recipients of charitable giving in the UK to see that most generosity is focused towards popular causes: medical research, children, animals, religious organizations, overseas relief, blind people, disabled people, elderly people, education and the rescue services.  Far too often we blame our fellow travelers for their own misfortune: while animals in distress come third in the table of kindess, homeless human beings languish far below.  Those in prison, particularly those who are condemned, find themselves much further down the totem pole.

Those who are most hated are often the most powerless among us, and those without power are those in the most need of help.  Morally, we are all obliged to do what we can for them.  Writing letters to those on Death Row may seem a very small contribution, but it is not.  When I am present for my client's execution, I can only lend him dignity in that most terrible moment.  LifeLines members who stick by their friends provide dignity and humanity for years on end.  Over the years, I cannot count the number of times my clients have thanked me for putting them in touch with a LifeLines friend, nor can I relay everything they have said about what it means to them.  I can say, however, what I believe Edward Johnson would say, if only he could: that there is no project with which I have been prouder to have an association.