I am Shauneen Lambe, and I am raising funds to support the vital life-saving work of my friends and former colleagues at the Capital Appeals Project, which is under threat from the new Trump-supporting Louisiana State Governor, Jeff Landry.
I started my legal career in 1997 in New Orleans, working for the brilliant human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, representing defendants and prisoners facing the death penalty. Many of our clients were being held in desperate conditions in Louisiana’s notorious state prison, Angola, a former slave plantation.
I returned to the UK some years later, but what I saw during my time in New Orleans has never left me. It shaped my career and taught me what it means to be a fearless lawyer, utterly committed to protecting my clients and challenging state injustice. (It was this experience that inspired me to set up the charity UK Just for Kids Law, which I led from 2006 to 2018; Clive, meanwhile, would go on to set up the NGO Reprieve.)
One of my darkest moments in New Orleans was sitting with the family of my innocent client Ryan Matthews, when a jury sentenced the then 18-year-old to death. It took five years of skilled investigation, legal challenges and tireless campaigning before Ryan was finally exonerated and freed from death row.
I've stayed in touch with my New Orleans colleagues at Capital Appeals Project, who continue to do their life-saving work, representing prisoners on death row and stopping others from ending up on death row in the first place.
CAP is a uniquely effective organisation, which overturns 83% of death penalty verdicts that are given out at trial in the state. Perhaps inevitably, this kind of success has made it a target for funding cuts by the pro-death penalty, Trump-supporting, governor, Jeff Landry, who was elected in October 2023. Governor Landry has axed CAP's funding. After a 14-year pause in executions under the previous governor - whose religious faith made him an opponent of the death penalty - Landy intends to go on an execution spree.
I've stayed in touch with Ryan Matthews and his family ever since he was freed from death row. He graduated in 2023, and his sister Monique Coleman, recently completed a PhD on the impact on family members of a wrongful capital conviction.
Ryan, Monique and their mum are pictured at the top (right) of this page showing their backing for our campaign. Other supporters include 'Rebel Nun' and veteran anti-death penalty campaigner Sister Helen Prejean (pictured top, left); and CAP client Jarrell Neal, who was freed from death row after 25 years, pictured top (centre), along with exoneree and CAP paralegal Calvin Duncan.
CAP's work is now under threat as never before. Earlier this year, Governor Landry signed a bill legalising two additional methods of execution - gassing and electric chair - such is his determination to go full steam ahead with a wave of judicial killings.
It is a chilling thought that, if Governor Landry has his way, the electric chair currently on display in the museum at Louisiana State Penitentiary (see below) will be dusted off and reinstated ready for use.
Overturning death penalty verdicts is detailed, forensic, time-consuming work, requiring expert lawyers and investigators. It cannot be done without funding - and CAP clients look set to be among the first in line for execution. Governor Landry's cuts have come at a particularly difficult time for CAP, as this is a presidential election year in the US, when the eyes of individuals and organisations who might fund CAP's work are focused on funding political candidates rather than death penalty lawyers.
That is why I am working with my friend CAP executive director Cecelia Kappel to raise the $100,000 (£80,000) they need to continue their work between now and the presidential election in November 2024, (we have previously raised £1,832).
Once the election is out of the way (whatever the outcome) the funding environment will settle down to more like normal, and Cecelia is positive other, long-term, sustainable sources will be found, including from philanthropists who have funded CAP previously. However, the prisoners in Landry's sights cannot wait, which is why funds are urgently needed now.
I am asking my UK legal colleagues and anyone else who cares about justice, to donate to help Cecelia and her team of six lawyers and three investigators to continue their vital work.
However dogged the lawyers and investigators, they do not succeed 100% of the time. When I was in New Orleans in 2000, there was one client we were unable to save. When he knew he was going to die, this client sent a letter to our office thanking everyone for looking after him and urging us to: ‘Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.’
With your help, Cecelia and her team will continue to do that, so please donate what you can.
About Capital Appeals Project
The Capital Appeals Project is a non-profit law office founded in 2001 by R. Neal Walker to provide representation to capital defendants on direct appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court and to the United States Supreme Court. CAP is one of the leading death penalty appeals offices in the country and has represented clients in multiple recent cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
About Impact - Law for Social Justice
Impact was set up in 2018 by lawyer Shauneen Lambe and journalist Fiona Bawdon, who previously worked together on many of Just for Kids Law's successful campaigns and legal challenges. We offer tailored, tried-and-tested advice and support for individuals and groups to plan and execute social justice campaigns, often based around litigation. We are supporting Capital Appeals Project's fundraising as part of Impact's commitment to providing pro bono services to causes close to both of our hearts.