The Center for Death Penalty Litigation

As we grieve the victims of racist violence, we want you to know where we stand

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A message from CDPL Executive Director Gretchen M. Engel:

When I came to North Carolina in 1992 to work against the death penalty, my first client was an African American man who’d been convicted of killing a white state trooper. My next client was an African American man whose white girlfriend persuaded him to kill her estranged white husband. An all-white jury sentenced him to death; the girlfriend got life. In 1999, my Black client Harvey Green was executed for killing two white people during a robbery. In fact, if you’d looked at my client list over the years, you’d think most of the violence in this country has been carried out by poor Black people — and that most of the victims were white.

However, in fighting against the death penalty, we at CDPL have necessarily steeped ourselves in the history of racial oppression in America. We understand the torturous journey from slavery to lynching and racial terror, to Jim Crow and the modern death penalty. Because we’ve studied this history, we know that much of the violence in our country has been carried out not by the people on death row, but by white people, some of them carrying badges or sitting in the highest positions of power, seeking to maintain the social order. And most of the people murdered in this country have never gotten justice.

This is what the Halifax County Courthouse looked like less than 50 years before my first client’s trial there:

This history is not distant.

Today, we see the legacy of racist violence in the death penalty, and also in the public executions of George Floyd and Armaud Arbery. In the killings of Philando Castile, Keith Scott, Eric Garner, Danquirs Franklin, and so many others. Too many others. My heart breaks for their families, and for our country that is still so poisoned by racism.

People work at CDPL because they believe in the inherent dignity and worth of every human being. We also believe deep in our bones that Black lives matter. And I want to make a few things clear:

  • We support the overwhelmingly peaceful and necessary protests against police violence.
  • We respect the leadership of Black-led organizations like Black Lives Matter, Emancipate NC, and the NAACP. We defer to them about the best way to stand up to racism and police violence in this moment.

CDPL will continue to fight against the racist state violence of the death penalty. But we also see that the death penalty is just one tool of oppression, and that we must be in solidarity with other movements for racial justice. To all who fight racism and oppression, we stand with you.

I hope we can turn our grief and pain into real change and that the strength of the ongoing protests will move our policy makers, courts, and public agencies to face and dismantle the systemic racism that has plagued the country for 400 years. I hope for concrete and meaningful reform. CDPL looks forward to working with all of you to make that happen.

Remembering Frank Wells

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CDPL Osborn Award 2018

Frank, third from left, receiving the Osborn Award in 2018 with his law partner, Jon Megerian.

North Carolina has lost a passionate and irreplaceable advocate. On Easter Sunday, renowned capital defense attorney and CDPL Board Vice-President Franklin E. Wells Jr. died suddenly at his home. He was 60. He left behind his wife, Gay, and their three daughters, Annah, Emily and Molly.

Frank was the longtime law partner of Jon Megerian. Together, they ran Megerian & Wells in Asheboro, taking on some of the region’s most difficult capital cases and saving their clients from the death penalty. In 2011, their zealous advocacy won a second-degree murder conviction for a man who overdosed on medications before killing eight people in a Carthage nursing home. And in 2006, they secured a life sentence for a man with severe mental illness who killed four people in Gaston County. In these and other cases, juries were swayed to eschew the death penalty by Frank and Jon’s tireless work to tell the whole story of their clients’ humanity and frailties. In 2018, Frank and Jon won CDPL’s J. Kirk Osborn Award for their decades of stellar lawyering and their commitment to training and mentoring other capital attorneys across North Carolina.

Frank was also involved in statewide litigation that exposed systemic racial inequities in jury selection. In February, he made a powerful argument before the N.C. Supreme Court, in which he urged the court to finally acknowledge racial discrimination against African American jurors. In his typical soft spoken style, he asked the court to reckon with North Carolina’s legacy of racism, and he led by example. He told the seven justices that his own family has lived in North Carolina since 1700 and that historical documents show his ancestors enslaved other human beings. “When I talk about the troubling, very uncomfortable history we have in this state with race, I’m talking about my history too. Until we confront our history of discrimination, we’re going to continue to have problems in this state.”

In addition to working closely with CDPL on many cases, Frank served on the CDPL board for more than a decade. “Frank was a wonderful lawyer and a terrific human being,” said CDPL Executive Director Gretchen M. Engel. “He saved lives in so many cases, and he was ever loyal to his clients. When his former client had a hearing in federal court recently, Frank came to court just to support him, even though it had been more than a decade since Frank represented him. He was a great teacher and donated countless hours to CDPL. Frank was always patient and kind; I respected him tremendously and I’m going to miss him terribly.”

Frank’s family has kindly asked that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to CDPL. Go here to donate in Frank’s memory.

Frank Wells

Frank showing off his Osborn Award

Covid-19 Update from CDPL

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CDPL is doing its part to help stop the spread of Covid-19. We have temporarily closed our office in downtown Durham, and all of our attorneys, investigators, and public education specialists are now working remotely. We have also temporarily ceased in-person client meetings to ensure that none of our staff carries the virus into a prison, where people are kept in confined spaces and are extraordinarily vulnerable to illness.

However, CDPL is continuing to fight vigorously for the rights of our clients. We are busy ensuring that employees have access to the technology they need to work on their cases from home. We’re also implementing systems to make sure that our clients can continue to contact their defense team members by mail and by telephone. We are continuously monitoring conditions at Central Prison and intervening on behalf of our clients when necessary. We are also reaching out to trial teams across the state and assisting them in obtaining continuances in light of the pandemic.

Our clients and the public can rest assured that CDPL will continue to zealously fight executions, now and in the future, and to advocate for an end to the cruel and unfair death penalty. You can continue to reach our staff by email and by calling our main phone line. 

Please also continue to check the blog of the N.C. Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty for the latest news about the death penalty.

Now Hiring: CDPL seeking two new staff attorneys

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The Center for Death Penalty Litigation (CDPL) in Durham, North Carolina seeks to hire two new staff attorneys to support its mission.

CDPL is a non-profit law firm and advocacy organization that works to provide the highest quality representation to people facing execution, and to end the death penalty in North Carolina. CDPL’s commitment to representing indigent and disadvantaged defendants just as vigorously as corporate lawyers defend their highest-paying clients, and training other capital attorneys across the state to do the same, has saved the lives of many who faced execution. In addition to representing individual clients, CDPL spearheads litigation and public education campaigns that address systemic injustices and cast light on the arbitrariness and unfairness of our state’s capital punishment system. Over the past decade, CDPL has been a leading force in stopping executions in North Carolina.

Our team of attorneys, mitigation investigators, paralegals, and public education specialists works to identify strategic opportunities to change public opinion and reduce the use of the death penalty. Our office also has a strong commitment to racial equity, and works both internally and externally to combat systemic racism. In addition to handling individual cases, attorneys are encouraged to participate in cross-disciplinary projects that further our goals of ending the death penalty and promoting racial equity.

CDPL is seeking to hire one attorney with at least 5 years of trial experience interested in working on both trial and post-conviction cases and also supervising and mentoring other attorneys. CDPL is also seeking to hire an attorney with at least two years of relevant experience interested in working on post-conviction cases and, if desired, trial cases.

In addition to these qualifications, ideal candidates will have:

  • A commitment to ending the death penalty and addressing systemic unfairness
  • Strong oral and written communications skills
  • An understanding of issues common in capital cases, including mental illness, poverty, racism, and substance abuse
  • An interest in advocacy and public education, in addition to direct representation of clients

Applicants should send a cover letter by February 20, 2020, detailing interest, as well as a resume, the names of two professional references, and a writing sample of approximately 10 pages to Ms. Barrie Wallace at barrie@cdpl.org. For additional information, please contact Barrie Wallace at barrie@cdpl.org.

CDPL is committed to diversity and racial equity and is an equal opportunity employer. CDPL seeks to recruit attorneys with diverse experiences and backgrounds who are committed to furthering CDPL’s racial equity goals. Our racial equity mission statement can be found here.

 

CDPL founder Henderson Hill joins Curtis Flowers defense team

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CDPL founder and former director Henderson Hill is joining the defense team of Curtis Flowers, a death-sentenced man in Mississippi whose extraordinary case rose to national prominence after a gripping podcast revealed that he is innocent.

Flowers is facing a seventh trial for the same crime. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned his case earlier this year after finding that the prosecutor had systematically excluded African American jurors at all six of Flowers’ previous trials. Now, the same district attorney appears poised to try Flowers again, even after the previous six trials either ended in hung juries or were overturned because of prosecutorial misconduct. Meanwhile, Flowers has spent 22 years in prison, most of it on death row, for a crime he didn’t commit.

“A good friend has famously observed that our criminal justice system treats you better if you are rich and guilty than if you are poor and innocent,” said Hill. “The justice system’s serial abuse of Curtis Flowers — poor, black and innocent — must and will stop. I am honored to work with Rob McDuff and the Mississippi Center for Justice to achieve that to which Mr. Flowers is so deeply entitled: a full measure of justice and vindication.”

The evidence of racist jury selection in Flowers’ case is strikingly similar to evidence that CDPL helped uncover in North Carolina under the Racial Justice Act. CDPL is litigating dozens of cases in which black jurors across North Carolina were illegally denied the right to serve because of their race.

Hill has spent his career fighting against the death penalty and championing civil rights. In addition to founding CDPL, he directed the Eighth Amendment Project, a national nonprofit that works to end the death penalty. His work has helped many people avoid death sentences and execution. In 2014, he won CDPL’s J. Kirk Osborn Award for leadership in capital defense.

“Henderson Hill is known throughout the country as an excellent lawyer with considerable courtroom experience in criminal defense and capital cases,” said McDuff. “He is a tireless proponent of fairness in our justice system, and his presence will add greatly to the effort to finally obtain justice for Curtis Flowers.”

CDPL argues Racial Justice Act cases in the NC Supreme Court

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On August 26 and 27, CDPL attorneys were part of an amazing team that argued six Racial Justice Act cases before the North Carolina Supreme Court. These cases go to the heart of our work to bring to light the injustice of the death penalty. We presented clear evidence that these death sentences were poisoned by racial discrimination and cannot stand. Here are a few memories from those momentous days. Read more here about the Racial Justice Act and why it matters.

 

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The whitening of the jury: Listen to a new documentary featuring CDPL attorney

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Black people have a constitutional right to serve on juries, just like white people. That should go without saying. But the reality is that prosecutors use all kinds of tricks and excuses to stop black citizens from sitting on juries. In this 5-minute audio documentary created by students at Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies, CDPL attorney Johanna Jennings explains how this form of racial discrimination persists in the courtroom.

One note: The documentary’s creators, Shaakira Raheem and Khalid Bashr, imagined some fictional questions that prosecutors might ask of black jurors like, “Do you have a birth certificate?” While these are not the actual questions prosecutors have asked black jurors in North Carolina courtrooms, some of the questions they actually have asked are equally outrageous and demeaning. For example:

  • In a Cumberland County courtroom, the prosecutor asked a black man if he had trouble reading and whether he went “straight through” school. No white jurors were asked similar questions.
  • Another Cumberland prosecutor asked a black man if he listened to Bob Marley or was familiar with the former emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie — implying that he might sympathize with black defendants who practiced Rastafarianism. Again, no white jurors were asked similar questions.
  • In Rowan County, a prosecutor asked a black woman if she would face criticism from her black friends if she voted to convict a black person of a crime.
  • In Transylvania County, a black juror was asked if her child’s father was paying child support.

Bob Trenkle & Etta Blankenship win 2019 Osborn Award

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CDPL has always known that it takes a team to win a death penalty case. Often, an attorney’s most trusted teammate is the mitigation investigator. Together, they undertake some of the most grueling and emotional work of a capital case: tracking down family members, investigating crime facts, sorting through a lifetime’s worth of records and documents, in addition to spending many hours with the client. Often, the results of that collaboration make the difference between life and death for our clients. That’s why this year, CDPL’s award for outstanding work in death penalty cases goes to a team: Bob Trenkle, an attorney who has spent three decades defending capital clients, and Etta Blankenship, the private investigator, who also does mitigation work, who has worked beside Bob on many of his death penalty cases.

“Bob and Etta exemplify what we mean when we say team defense,” said CDPL Executive Director Gretchen M. Engel. “They have shown us over decades what it means to care about clients and to devote yourself to saving people’s lives.”

Bob and Etta began working together in 1991, when both worked for the Orange County Public Defender’s Office. Bob has now represented more than 100 capital clients, and taken eight cases to capital trial, as well as representing several capital clients in post-conviction proceedings. Etta has been his first pick as an investigator on every one of his cases. In 2001, the two worked together to shape North Carolina’s first Capital Defender’s Office. They helped set the capital defense standards that have made death penalty verdicts rare in North Carolina. Both have also devoted untold hours to mentoring other capital defense teams throughout the state.

Bob has worked as a public defender in both Florida and North Carolina. He also taught law at the University of Florida Law School. He has been with the firm of Edwards & Trenkle since 2002. He is a Board Certified lawyer in both federal and state criminal law. He has lectured and taught attorneys on defending capital murder charges in North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Texas, most recently in April. Bob has volunteered as an instructor at numerous training seminars on capital defense, and defense attorneys across the state say he is always willing to take their call and offer as much of his time as they need.

Etta was licensed as a private investigator in 2003. At that time, she began traveling the state doing fact and mitigation investigations in capital cases. Etta is known for her caring touch with clients and building the trust required to help them make good decisions about their defense. In 2017, in addition to dealing with her own cases, she flew to be with a friend whose brother was facing execution in Arkansas. Etta went to the prison with her friend while she had her final visit with her brother and was also at the prison with her friend during the execution of her brother.  Afterwards, Etta wrote this moving piece about that experience.

Bob and Etta never rest on their victories. As soon as they win one case, they move on to saving the next life. We hope that, at our award reception in September, they will finally take a moment to celebrate their many accomplishments. BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE.

The J. Kirk Osborn Award

J. Kirk Osborn

It has now been more than a decade since we lost J. Kirk Osborn, one of the giants of the capital defense community. Kirk defended more than a dozen capital cases and never had a client sentenced to death. His advocacy and deep compassion for his clients saved many lives, and inspired other attorneys to follow in his footsteps. Each year, the Center for Death Penalty Litigation honors Kirk’s legacy by presenting the J. Kirk Osborn Award for lifelong zealous advocacy, compassion for indigent men and women facing the death penalty, and leadership among capital defense attorneys.

CDPL wins justice for a client who spent 19 years on death row

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On Nov. 9, CDPL client James Morgan was removed from death row after his attorneys argued that Morgan never got the fair trial to which the Constitution entitles him. The jury that sentenced Morgan to death 19 years ago wasn’t told about his his severe and lifelong brain damage from three separate traumatic brain injuries, beginning in childhood. This is exactly the type of evidence that typically persuades juries to choose life instead of death. With the approval of Buncombe District Attorney Todd Williams, Morgan will now serve life without parole. Read more from one of his attorneys, Elizabeth Hambourger.

Contact Us

The Center for Death Penalty Litigation
123 West Main Street · Suite 700 · · ·
Durham, NC 27701
919-956-9545
cdpl@cdpl.org

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