The Philadelphia law firm of Morgan Lewis recent­ly cel­e­brat­ed the exon­er­a­tion of John Thompson, who spent 18 years on Louisiana’s death row before two of the fir­m’s part­ners helped to win his free­dom. Firm part­ners J. Gordon Cooney Jr. and Michael L. Banks pro­vid­ed Thompson with pro bono ser­vices that cost the firm $1.7 mil­lion in legal work and expens­es over a 15-year peri­od and involved 90 lawyers and sup­port staff. According to the city’s bar asso­ci­a­tion, there is a mas­sive need for addi­tion­al lawyers to do more. Sharon Browning, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the bar asso­ci­a­tion’s Volunteers for Indigent Defense, said, ​“I can’t even begin to tell you how vast the need is. It’s huge. The over­whelm­ing major­i­ty of peo­ple who are poor have no access to the legal sys­tem — none.” Even with the extra­or­di­nary rep­re­sen­ta­tion by Morgan Lewis, Thompson came close to exe­cu­tion in 1999 until a piece of evi­dence was dis­cov­ered that had been with­held from the defense in 1985. (Philadelphia Inquirer) See DPIC’s report With Justice for Few: The Growing Crisis in Death Penalty Representation.

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