Reprieve UK is a charity that uses legal advocacy to enforce human rights for prisoners around the world. It provides pro bono legal support to prisoners on death row and in Guantanamo Bay. Reprieve has had successes exonerating innocent prisoners and securing releases. The organization is funded through donations and relies heavily on volunteer support and pro bono assistance from law firms.

1. Reprieve UK
Seb Conti, Matt Latus, Stuart
Pearson, Ivan Tolstikov, Declan Rogers

2. Capital Punishment
The death penalty is one of the most highly
debated aspects of the world’s legal systems.
During our presentation, try thinking of
reasons for and against the death penalty.

3. Introduction
• Reprieve is a UK based charity that uses the law to enforce the
human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantánamo
Bay.
• Investigate, litigate and educate providing legal support to
prisoners unable to pay for it themselves.
• Reprieve prioritises cases of prisoners accused of the most
extreme crimes as it is in such cases that human rights are
most likely to be abandoned or thrown out.

4. Video 1
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_WGRGQKfJI&feature=B
Fa&list=UUdWZG7e4ZlzMK9epYSmoKtA&lf=plcp

5. • Reprieve has several different
programs and schemes;

6. • Drone Strikes

7. • European Rendition Complicity

8. • Proxy Detention

9. • SLIP (Stop the lethal injections project)

10. • 2002 UK torture complicity

11. Founder
• Reprieve UK was founded in 1999 by human rights lawyer
Clive Stafford Smith.
• After graduating from Columbia Law School in New York, Clive
spent nine years as a lawyer with the Southern Centre for
Human Rights.
• In 1993, he moved to New Orleans and launched the
Louisiana Crisis Assistance Centre.

12. • In total, Clive has represented over 300 prisoners facing the
death penalty in the southern United States.
• He has never been paid by a client and has prevented the
death penalty in all but six cases (a 98% “victory” rate).
• He has also received many honours and awards including an
OBE for 'humanitarian services' in 2000.
• Ranked 6th on the 2009 list of Britain’s Most Powerful
Lawyers in The Times Newspaper.

13. • In the following video, Clive Stafford Smith explains why he
founded Reprieve UK and also talks about Reprieve's UK’s
work on death penalty cases.
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsf3goaVm8g

14. Reprieve Employees
• Reprieve UK currently has 25 full-time staff working in
London.
• Five Fellows in the USA & Two Fellows in Pakistan.
• Countless volunteers spread around the world.
• The following video gives a glimpse behind the scenes at their
London office. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i-
PVD_xkKk&feature=player_embedded)

15. Success Stories
• The first success story I would like to highlight
is the Ayman al Shurafa case which began with
his arrest in 2001. Aymen Had serious
problem upon release which I found
interesting.

16. Success Stories
• The second story is Ryan Matthews spent five
years on Louisiana’s notorious death row
before DNA evidence uncovered by Reprieve
led to his exoneration and release

17. Success Stories
• Mohammed el Gharani was the oungest
prisoner in Guantánamo Bay, arrested when
he was just 14. In January 2009, a federal
judge ruled that he was not (and never had
been) an enemy combatant, and ordered him
released. He was transferred to his country of
citizenship, Chad, on 11 June 2009 and spent a
week in police custody before being released
to his family.

18. Moral?
I want to discuss the question of whether it is
morally right or wrong to be defending these
people

19. Moral?
• British legal scholar William Blackstone famously
said that it was better to have ten criminals
escape punishment than to have one innocent
man imprisoned.
Many people argue that by defending these
people with a fantastic legal team may mean that
guilty people will walk free just because of the
skills of the lawyers.
• We counter this with if reprieve manage to save
at least one totally innocent person from being
killed by the state they are working ethically.

20. Moral?
• The conclusion to this question that we all agree on
can be summed up by Jack Marshall in his piece 'The
Ethics of Justice: Why Criminal Defence Lawyers
Defend the Guilty', “Criminal defence attorneys have
an unimaginably difficult task, as stressful and
emotionally challenging as that of a surgeon who must
hold life in his hands, and be able to watch a patient
die under his scalpel and return to operate again the
next day. It doesn't produce satisfaction or joy when
defence attorneys see their guilty criminal clients go
free, guaranteed by the Constitutional prohibition
against "double jeopardy" never to have to suffer
punishment for terrible crimes.”

21. Reference
• Marshall, J. (2005). The Ethics of Justice: Why
Criminal Defense Lawyers Defend the
Guilty. Available:
http://www.ethicsscoreboard.com/list/defens
e.html. Last accessed 21/03/2012.

22. Finances
• The organizational philosophy at Reprieve is about fairness, justice
and transparency. We have 3 pay grades at Reprieve. Our Executive
Director Clare Algar took a 6 figure salary cut to come and lead our
team – she is paid £42,000. Team directors are paid £35,000 and all
other staff, including lawyers, are paid £31,000.
• Reprieve’s founding Director Clive Stafford Smith is currently living
off a grant he was awarded and so donates his time pro bono to
Reprieve
• At Reprieve the turnover reaches £1.7m per annum .

23. Support from law firms
• Free Office Space: Reprieve occupies premises
donated rent-free by law firm Freshfields
Bruckhaus Deringer. We estimate that this
saves us £182,000 a year.
• Collaborative work with other law firms and
chambers in the UK, outsourcing pro bono
legal research and investigation projects and
thereby vastly amplifying our output.

24. Finances

25. Volunteers
• To date Reprieve has placed 250 volunteers in 14 different
offices across 7 states. The total number of hours worked
by volunteers equates to over 64 years of full-time work.
• In 2011 Reprieve was assigned 6 volunteers through the
Vodafone grant scheme, out of a total 500 volunteers
assigned to charities across Britain. Each fellow received
£2,500 in order to carry out their volunteer programme –
an enormous boost to our capabilities.
• Reprieve usually has 10 – 15 volunteers in their office at any
one time, more in the summer. Again, this allows them to
undertake huge amounts of work at no cost to them.

26. Case Studies
• "I was told by the police that, “this is what we do”, and they told me that I needed
to confess, but they did not tell me what I needed to confess to. Then the next
night, they took me out and they tied me up. They then beat my feet. They hit me
15 times. It hurt so much that I almost fainted; it was like being hit with a knife. I
told them that I wanted to help and would do whatever they wanted, so they went
away and came back with a blank piece of paper that they wanted me to sign. I
needed to sign it at the bottom and at various points up the side. The old man then
told me that no-one would beat me any more, but I would have to stay there a few
days. Later I worked out that this was because they needed to give my feet time to
recover. I am so glad that Sarah and Sultana were with me. All of the other
prisoners were extremely jealous and could not understand why Sarah would come
and visit me so often. They would ask, “Why is your lawyer so interested in your
case?” First they asked if she was my wife and then they asked if she was family,
but I just said that she was a good lawyer that cared about her clients. Now they
all want Sarah to be their lawyer.” - Shabbir Zaib, death row in Punjab, Pakistan,
aquitted and released

27. Case Studies continued...
• "Mohammed Hussein is free after seven years
of unjustified imprisonment. This freedom
was caused by your team, who are devoted to
advocating for the wrongly imprisoned. I urge
you to keep doing this, which is a universal
value, because every human has rights
regardless of colour, religion, or nationality.
Thanks." - A relative of Mohammed Hussein
Abdullah, released from Guantánamo Bay

28. Testimonials
• "Reprieve... I love you so much. If it had not
been for you behind me I think that I would
have lost all hope…in the legal system.
Reprieve (are) my earthly champions. If there's
going to be any earthly glory, it should go to
them." Linda Carty. death row, Texas

29. Testimonials
• "I didn't think such an organisation existed. I
always thought that we were 'a no value
prisoner'. Thank You for providing hope."-
Virendra Govin, Briton on death row in
California

30. Testimonials
• "I remember the faces of those I left behind
nearly three years ago. The steel doors, solid
walls, and specially the screams that filled the
blocks, I start thinking, and remember, and
hope slowly, but surely starts filing my chest,
thanks to…Reprieve and all the good people
who are helping." Bisher Al-Rawi, released
from Guantánamo Bay

31. Conclusion
• Reprieve UK uses the law to enforce the
human rights of prisoners, from death row
to Guantánamo Bay.
• Investigate, litigate and educate.

32. Debate
• The death penalty, right or wrong?

33. Our ideas...
• For
• Cost of rehabilitation
• Deterrence.
• If someone kills do they deserve to die
• What could they do if they aren’t subjected to capital punishment?
• Against
• Could be innocent?
• Human rights
• Who has the right to decide when people should die?
• Is it just as bad as what they’ve done

34. End Video
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4rjfLowX
y8&feature=related