STEPHEN B. BRIGHT, director
Southern Center for Human Rights
83 Poplar Street, N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303-2122
404/688-1202 Fax: 688-9440 e-mail: sbright@schr.org
Director, Southern Center for Human Rights, a public interest legal
project which provides representation to persons facing the death penalty and to prisoners
in challenges to cruel and unusual conditions of confinement in eleven southern
states.
Responsibilities include representing individuals in capital and prisoners' rights cases,
supervising capital and prisoners' rights litigation of nine-attorney staff, hiring and
administration of the Center.
PREVIOUS LAW PRACTICE:
Trial attorney, Public Defender Service, Washington, D.C. Representation
of indigent persons accused of crimes in the District of Columbia courts. (September 7,
1976 to August 20, 1979)
Legal services attorney, Appalachian Research and Defense Fund,
Lexington, Ky. Representation of indigent persons in jail conditions, welfare rights and
other civil litigation. (May 6, 1975 to July 31, 1976)
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS:
Yale Law School, J. Skelly Wright Fellow
and Visiting Lecturer in Law, spring terms, 1993, 1994, 1996; Visiting Lecturer in Law,
spring, 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000 (courses: capital punishment, seminar in advocacy).
Harvard Law School, Visiting Lecturer in Law, winter, 1997, 1998,
1999 (advanced criminal procedure); fall, 1994 (advanced criminal procedure,
prisoners' rights, and post-conviction remedies).
Emory Law School, Senior Lecturer in Law, 1998- ; Visiting Lecturer in
Law, fall, 1997.
Georgetown University Law Center, Visiting Associate Professor,
spring 1997.
Northeastern University School of Law, Visiting Lecturer,
summer, 1996.
St. Mary's University School of Law, Institute on World Legal Problems,
Innsbruck, Austria, Lecturer, summer, 1996 (death penalty and international
human rights).
Florida State University College of Law, Tobias Simon Scholar in Public
Interest Law. spring, 1992.
Executive Director, District of Columbia Law Students in Court Program,
Washington, D.C., a clinical program in trial advocacy for third-year law students which
provides legal assistance to poor people in civil and criminal cases in the District of
Columbia, operated by a consortium of the American, Catholic, George Washington,
Georgetown and Howard Universities in Washington, D. C. (February 1, 1981 to September 17,
1982; supervising attorney in the criminal division of the program, August 20, 1979 to
January 31, 1981)
LITIGATION EXPERIENCE:
Representation of persons facing the death
penalty at trial, appeal and post-conviction stages of capital cases since 1979 in state
and federal courts in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Maryland, Mississippi and South Carolina;
argued capital cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Courts of Appeals of the
Fourth, Fifth and Eleventh Circuits and the supreme courts of Florida, Georgia, and
Mississippi; representation of prisoners in federal class actions suits challenging
conditions of confinement; tried numerous non-capital criminal cases as a public defender
in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.
Cases include:
Amadeo v. Zant, 486 U.S. 214 (1988) (briefed and argued before
the United States Supreme Court) (conviction and death sentence set aside due to racial
discrimination).
Brooks v. Kemp, 762 F.2d 1383 (11th Cir. 1985) (en banc), vacated
and remanded, 478 U.S. 1016 (1986), adhered to on remand, 809 F.2d 700 (11th
Cir. 1987) (en banc), cert. denied, 483 U.S. 1010 (1987) (conviction and death
sentence vacated due to jury instruction which shifted burden of proof on intent).
Isaacs & Dungee v. Kemp, 778 F.2d 1482 (11th Cir. 1985), cert.
denied, 476 U.S. 1164 (1986) (conviction and death sentence set aside due to failure
to grant a change of venue).
Amadeo v. State, 384 S.E.2d 181 (Ga. 1989) (finding that
"special skills are necessary to assure adequate representation in death penalty
cases" and reversing refusal of trial judge to appoint counsel familiar with case due
to post-conviction representation to continue representation of defendant at new trial).
Brooks v. State, 385 S.E.2d 81 (Ga. 1989) (establishing right of
indigent defendant in criminal cases in Georgia to make ex parte application for
funds for experts and investigators).
Mississippi Publishers Corp. v. Coleman, 515 So.2d 1163 (Miss.
1987) (ordering closure of pretrial proceedings in highly publicized capital case).
LAW REVIEW ARTICLES AND ESSAYS:
Bright, Counsel for the Poor: The Death
Sentence Not for the Worst Crime but for the Worst Lawyer, 103 Yale Law Journal 1835
(1994).
Bright, Neither Equal nor Just: The Rationing and Denial of Legal Services to the Poor When
Life and Liberty Are at Stake, 1997 NYU Annual Survey of American Law
783 (1997).
Bright, Discrimination, Death and Denial: The Tolerance of Racial
Discrimination in the Infliction of the Death Penalty, 35 Santa Clara Law Review 433
(1995).
Bright & Keenan, Judges and the Politics of Death: Deciding
Between the Bill of Rights and the Next Election in Capital Cases, 75 Boston
University Law Review 759 (1995).
Bright, Political Attacks on the Judiciary: Can Justice Be Done Amid
Efforts to Intimidate and Remove Judges From Office for Unpopular Decisions? 72 New
York University Law Review 308 (1997).
Bright, Can Judicial Independence be Attained in the South?
Overcoming History, Elections and Misperceptions About the Role of the Judiciary,
14 Georgia State University Law Review 817 (1998).
Bright, Challenging Racism in the Infliction of the Death Penalty,
51 Guild Practitioner 119 (1994).
Bright, Death by Lottery - Procedural Bar of Constitutional Claims in Capital Cases Due to
Inadequate Representation of Indigent Defendants, 92 West Virginia Law Review 679
(1990).
Bright, Casualties of the War on Crime: Fairness, Reliability and
the Credibility of Criminal Justice Systems, 51 Miami Law Review 413 (1997).
Bright, The American Bar Association's Recognition of the Sacrifice
of Fairness for Results: Will We Pay for Justice?, 4 Georgetown Journal on Fighting
Poverty 183 (1997).
BOOK CHAPTERS:
Bright, The Politics of Capital Punishment: The Sacrifice of
Fairness for Executions, a chapter in America's Experiment with Capital Punishment
(James R. Acker, Robert M Bohm & Charles S. Lanier, eds. 1998)
Bright, Legalized Lynching: Race, the Death Penalty and the United
States Courts, a chapter in The International Sourcebook on Capital Punishment
(William A. Schabas, ed. 1997).
Bright, Race, Poverty and Disadvantage in the Infliction of the
Death Penalty in the Death Belt, a chapter in The Machinery of Death published by
Amnesty International (1995).
Bright, Indifference to Injustice, a chapter in Frontiers of
Justice: Volume 1: The Death Penalty (Claudia Whitman & Julie Zimmerman, eds. 1997)
LECTURES AND SPEECHES:
Is Fairness Irrelevant? The Evisceration
of Federal Habeas Corpus Review and Limits on the Ability of State Courts to Protect
Fundamental Rights, John Randolph Tucker Lecture, Washington & Lee University
School of Law, 54 Washington & Lee Law Review 1 (1997)
The Electric Chair and the Chain Gang: Choices and Challenges for
America's Future, 71 Notre Dame Law Review 845 (1996)
The Death Penalty as the Answer to
Crime: Costly, Counterproductive and Corrupting, 36 Santa Clara Law Review 1069 (1996)
Keynote Address: Capital Punishment and the Criminal Justice System
- Courts of Vengeance or
Courts of Justice?, presented at Conference on the Death Penalty in the Twenty-first
Century sponsored by the Criminal Law Society at the Washington College of Law of the
American University, 45 American University Law Review 279 (1995).
The Politics of Crime and the Death Penalty: Not "Soft on
Crime," But Hard on the Bill of Rights, 39 St. Louis University Law Journal 479
(1995).
In Defense of Life: Enforcing the Bill of Rights on Behalf of Poor,
Minority and Disadvantaged Persons Facing the Death Penalty, Adler-Rosecan Lecture,
University of Missouri School of Law, February 14, 1992, 57 Missouri Law Review 849
(1992).
Commencement Address: Keep the Hope of Equal Justice
Alive, Yale Law School Commencement, May 24, 1999.
Commencement Address: Drum Majors for Justice, Yale Law School
Commencement, May 23, 1994.
The Bill of Rights vs. the Billable Hour: Protecting Fundamental
Values in a Material World, Max Swinford Lecture, University of Kentucky College of
Law, October 22, 1992.
Other presentations on various criminal justice, corrections and public
interest law topics at annual meetings of the American Bar Association (1984, 1991, 1994,
1995, 1997, 1998, 1999), universities, meetings of professional associations, and other programs.
(1976 to present)
DEBATES AND PANEL DISCUSSIONS (published):
Human Rights and Human Wrongs: Is the United States
Death Penalty System Inconsistent with International Human Rights Law? American
Bar Association Annual Meeting, Toronto, Canada, August 3, 1998, published
in volume 67 Fordham Law Review, page 2793 (1999).
Carter Center Symposium on the Death Penalty,
held at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Center on July 14, 1997, volume 14
Georgia State Law Review, page 329 (1998).
The Modern View of Capital Punishment, a debate with the
Honorable Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, 34
American Criminal Law Review 1353 (1997).
Panel discussion, Reflections on a Quarter-Century of
Constitutional Regulation of Capital Punishment, The Seventh Belle R. & Joseph H.
Braun Memorial Distinguished Lecture Series, 30 John Marshall Law Review 399 (1997).
Panel discussion, Capital Punishment: Is There Any Habeas Left in
this Corps?, annual meeting of the American Bar Association, 27 Loyola University of
Chicago Law Review 560, 569-580 (Spring 1996).
Panel discussion, The O.J. Simpson Case and Capital Punishment,
sponsored by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, published at 38 Howard
Law Journal 247 (1995).
Panel discussion, The Death of Fairness? Counsel Competency and Due
Process in Death Penalty Cases, presentation at the annual meeting of the American Bar
Association, 31 Houston Law Review 1106, 1124 (1994).
NEWSPAPER AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES:
Bright, Death Penalty Moratorium: Fairness,
Integrity at Stake, American Bar Association Criminal Justice
Magazine, Vol. 13, Now. 2, page 28 (Summer, 1998).
Bright, Gideon v. Wainwright at 35: Glimpses at a Dream Yet to be
Realized, The Champion (published by the National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers), March 1988.
Bright, Challenging Racial Discrimination in Capital Cases, The
Champion, January/February 1997.
Bright, Hanging the Judge: Demagogues, politicians chip away at U.S.
court system, Arizona Republic, June 6, 1997.
Bright, Obtaining Funds for Experts and Investigative Assistance,
The Champion, June 1997.
Bright, Does the Bill of Rights Apply Here Any More? Evisceration of
Habeas Corpus and the Denial of Counsel to Those Sentence of Death, The Champion,
November 1996.
Bright, Quality of death penalty lawyers is indefensible, N.Y.
Daily News, Sept. 8, 1994.
Bright, Death Sentence Lottery, The Washington Post, July 3,
1990.
Bright & Canan, The Coppola Execution: An Unseemly Rush to
Death, The Washington Post, August 15, 1982.
Bright, Kinnard & Webster, Keeping Gideon from Being
Blown Away; Prospective Challenges to Inadequate Representation, American Bar
Association Criminal Justice Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Winter 1990).
EXPERT TESTIMONY:
Expert testimony on the demands on counsel in capital cases in the
Court of Common Pleas of Aiken County, quoted with approval by the South Carolina Supreme
Court in Bailey v. State, 424 S.E.2d 503, 507-508 (S.C. 1993) (holding that lawyers
appointed to capital cases in South Carolina must be reasonably compensated, not limited
to amount set in state statute).
Expert testimony on racial discrimination in the infliction of the
death penalty before the Inter American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of
American States in In re William Andrews. February 22, 1996.
Expert testimony on the effectiveness of counsel in Commonwealth
v. Wilson, Circuit court of Kenton County, Kentucky, No. 87-CR-166,
decided March 5, 1997.
Expert testimony on the effectiveness of counsel in Commonwealth v.
Willoughby, Circuit Court of Fayette County, Kentucky, No. 83-CR-00152-2, February 11,
1998.
Affidavits in support of stay of execution and on
review regarding obligations of counsel in capital cases, submitted in In
re Ditshwanelo - The Botswana Centre for Human Rights, Tlhabologang Maauwe
and Gwara Brown Motswetla v. Attorney General of Botswana, High Court
of the Republic of Botswana, April 1999.
TESTIMONY BEFORE LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEES AND COMMISSIONS:
Testimony before the United
States Commission on Civil Rights on racial discrimination in the criminal
justice system, April 15, 1999.
Testimony before the Committee on the
Judiciary of the United States Senate regarding the inadequacy of court-appointed counsel
in capital cases. February 21, 1990.
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of
the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding proposed
federal death penalty legislation and the Racial Justice Act. May 9, 1990.
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of
the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding racial
discrimination in the infliction of the death penalty. July 11, 1991.
Testimony before the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States
Senate in opposition to the nomination of Edward Earl Carnes to the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the Eleventh Circuit. April 1, 1992.
Testimony before the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights of
the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives regarding the federal
habeas corpus. May 20, 1993.
Testimony on capital punishment issues before committees of the
Connecticut, Georgia and Texas legislatures.
BOARDS AND COMMITTEES:
Member, American Bar Association Task Force on Habeas
Corpus Review of State Capital Cases (1988-89), which studied the
problems of review of capital cases and made proposals and issued a
report, which were adopted with minor revision by the ABA House of
Delegates in February, 1991. Toward a More Just and Effective System
of Review in State Death Penalty Cases, 40 American University Law
Review 1 (1990); author of minority report on problem of inadequate
legal representation and need for procedural protections, Minority
Report of Stephen B. Bright, 40 American University Law Review at
209.
Board of Directors, Texas Resource Center, a
non-profit, public interest legal project which recruits attorneys and
provides direct representation to persons facing the death penalty in
Texas. (1988-1996)
Board of Directors, National Association of Criminal
Defense Attorneys 91996-present)
Board of Directors, Georgia Justice Project, a
non-profit organization providing legal representation and other
assistance to poor people charged with crimes (1999- )
PUBLIC SERVICE:
Member, American Bar Association Task Force on Habeas Corpus Review of
State Capital Cases (1988-89), which studied the problems of review of capital cases and
made proposals and issued a report, which were adopted with minor revision by the ABA
House of Delegates in February, 1991. Toward a More Just and Effective System of Review
in State Death Penalty Cases, 40 American University Law Review 1 (1990); author of
minority report on problem of inadequate legal representation and need for procedural
protections, Minority Report of Stephen B. Bright, 40 American University Law
Review at 209.
Board of Directors, Texas Resource Center,
a non-profit, public interest legal project which recruits attorneys and provides direct
representation to persons facing the death penalty in Texas. (1988-1996)
Board of Directors, National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys
(1996 to present)
CONTRIBUTIONS TO CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION:
Editor and co-author, Defending a Capital Case in Georgia (1987
& 2d ed. 1993) and Mississippi Death Penalty Defense Materials (3d ed. 1987);
co-author, Defending a Capital Case in Alabama (1988) and Defending a Capital
Case in Louisiana (1987), all manuals on the defense of capital cases at trial
published by the Southern Center for Human Rights and made available at duplication cost
to attorneys representing indigent defendants.
Presentations on capital litigation, litigating issues of racial
discrimination, various trial practice topics, judicial independence and habeas corpus
issues at week-long death penalty colleges sponsored by the California Attorney for
Criminal Justice and California Public Defenders Association and the Kentucky Office of
Public Advocacy, seminars and continuing legal education programs sponsored by the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund, the National Legal Aid and Defender Association, the Florida Public
Defenders Association, the District of Columbia Bar, the Georgia Council of Superior Court
Judges, the Kentucky Circuit Judges Judicial College, the District of Columbia Criminal
Practice Institute, the United States Army Trial Defense Service and other organizations.
HONORS AND AWARDS:
American Bar Association's Thurgood Marshall Award, presented at the ABA Annual Meeting,
Toronto, August
1, 1998.
Kutak-Dodds Prize, presented by the National Legal Aid & Defender
Association, for "extraordinary vision and inspiring leadership in the struggle
against capital punishment; for his powerful advocacy on behalf of death row inmates
throughout the South; and his unwavering conviction that those who face the worst penalty
have a right to the best lawyers." May 6, 1992.
Roger Baldwin Medal of Liberty, presented by the American Civil
Liberties Union, , for "extraordinary contributions to civil liberties in the United
States." June 19, 1991.
John Minor Wisdom Professionalism and Public Service Award, presented
by the American Bar Association's Section on Litigation for "high standards of
professionalism and outstanding contribution in promoting an open profession and an open
system of justice." October 24, 1991.
Significant Contributions to Criminal Justice Award,
presented by the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, December 11,
1999, in Oakland.
Award for Leadership in Human Rights, presented by the Columbia
Human Rights Law Review, Columbia Law School, "for longstanding
commitment" and "extraordinary commitment to the field of human
rights." April 14, 1999.
Brandeis Medal, presented by the Brandeis Society of the Louis D.
Brandeis School of Law, Louisville, Kentucky. March 12, 1998.
Henry R. Heyburn Alumni Public Service Award, presented by the
University of Kentucky College of Law Alumni Association, June 17, 1998.
Outstanding Leadership in the Public Interest Award, presented by the
Emory Public Interest Committee, Emory Law School. February 5, 1998.
Stuart Stiller Memorial Award, awarded by friends of Stuart Stiller to
honor those in the legal profession who symbolize the humanity, professional excellence,
compassion, humor and empathy shown by Stuart Stiller during his life. March, 1995.
Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights for "enormous contribution to
the defense of human rights and dignity for people on death row." April 23, 1993.
Durfee Award for "significantly enhancing the human dignity of
others through law," the Durfee Foundation, San Diego, California. December, 1988.
BAR MEMBERSHIP:
Member of the bars of the District of
Columbia, Florida, Georgia and Kentucky.
Also admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United
States, the United States Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, Eleventh and District
of Columbia Circuits, and a number of federal district courts.
EDUCATION:
J. D., College of Law, University of Kentucky, Lexington, December,
1974.
B.A., Political Science, University of Kentucky, 1971.
PERSONAL:
Born: December 30, 1948, in Danville, Kentucky.
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