In the lat­est edi­tion of the Death Penalty Information Center’s pod­casts, we inter­view attor­ney Jennifer Whitfield (pic­tured) of Covington & Burling, who worked to secure the release of for­mer death row inmate Larry Smith in Alabama. Mr. Smith was sen­tenced to death in 1995 for a mur­der relat­ed to a rob­bery. His con­vic­tion hinged on a state­ment he made after 4 hours of inter­ro­ga­tion. In vio­la­tion of police guide­lines, his inter­ro­ga­tion was not record­ed, and Mr. Smith lat­er said his admis­sion of involve­ment in the crime was coerced and influ­enced by threats made to pros­e­cute his wife. No phys­i­cal evi­dence or eye­wit­ness account linked Mr. Smith to the mur­der, and a wit­ness, who said Smith hatched a plan to rob the vic­tim, was lat­er impli­cat­ed in plan­ning the crime him­self. In 2007, an Alabama Circuit Court ordered a retri­al, and a plea deal was reached this year (April 6, 2012) that allowed Mr. Smith to be released after plead­ing guilty to con­spir­a­cy to com­mit rob­bery. The mur­der charges against him were dropped. In the pod­cast inter­view, Ms. Whitfield dis­cuss­es the fail­ures that led to Mr. Smith’s con­vic­tion and how some of those prob­lems, includ­ing inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion and coerced con­fes­sions, affect the death penal­ty sys­tem at large. Listen to the pod­cast.

Brian White of the law firm of White & Oakes LLC in Decatur, Alabama, was also part of the legal team that led to Mr. Smith’s recent release.

DPIC’s pod­casts offer con­cise, infor­ma­tive dis­cus­sions of impor­tant death penal­ty issues, suit­able for edu­ca­tion­al pur­pos­es. Other recent episodes include a dis­cus­sion of inter­na­tion­al issues relat­ed to the American death penal­ty and a pod­cast in Spanish pro­vid­ing an overview of the death penal­ty. You can receive auto­mat­ic updates of our pod­casts through iTunes when new episodes are post­ed and receive access to all pre­vi­ous episodes. Other audio and video resources, along with all of DPIC’s pod­casts, can be found on our Multimedia page. Many of our pod­casts are also avail­able on our iPhone or iPad App as well.

(DPIC Podcast #20: Jennifer Whitfield Interview, post­ed May 24, 2012; ” Covington Secures Release of Death Row Inmate,” Press Release, April 12, 2012; Smith v. Alabama, No. CC95-200104, Jan. 12, 2007 (Marshall County Circuit Court) (Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law); see also S. Michels, ​“Death Penalty Appeal Without a Lawyer,” ABC News, June 11, 2007). See Representation and lis­ten to DPIC’s pod­cast on Representation.

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