The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) is pleased to announce this year's recipient of the Arthur von Briesen Award, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr., partner of Jenner & Block, will be honored during NLADA's 2004 Annual Conference Awards Luncheon on Friday, December 3, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The Arthur von Briesen Award honors a private attorney who has made substantial volunteer contributions in support of the delivery of civil legal aid or indigent defense representation. The award celebrates the achievements of the first president of NLADA.

Verrilli is nationally recognized for his pro bono work on behalf of death row inmates. For 21 years, Verrilli has committed himself to providing representation to those in the greatest need for free legal assistance. He credits his commitment to his experience as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. In handling last-minute stay requests, Verrilli is quoted as saying “There is so much unfairness that I felt compelled to spend some of my career on {changing} that.”

In a letter of nomination, Robin Maher, director, of the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project, said, “ I believe there is no greater demand on a lawyer than to represent someone facing a death sentence. Donald Verrilli has repeatedly met this challenge with courage, determination and profound humility.”

To Verrilli’s credit, he served as lead counsel on the U.S. Supreme Court case Wiggins v. Smith, 539 U.S. 510 (2003), in which the court ruled in favor of Wiggins stating that during the sentencing phase of his capital murder trial his Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel was violated. The Court ruled that attorneys in capital cases must diligently investigate the background of their clients in order to find possible mitigating evidence that could sway a jury’s or a judge’s sentencing decisions. Wiggins v. Smith gained monumental status among capital cases when the Court concluded that Wiggins’ trial lawyers had failed to do the work necessary to represent their clients effectively. The Court’s decision made it clear that defense counsel representing a client facing a death sentence must thoroughly investigate all reasonable avenues of defense, and cannot excuse inadequate performance merely by claiming they made a “tactical” decision not to pursue an uninvestigated line of defense. As a result of Verrilli’s representation, Wiggins’ death sentence was thrown out and he has been granted a new sentencing hearing.

In addition to the Wiggins case, Verrilli has successfully represented two other death row inmates. After an eight-year battle, he secured a reversal of both the conviction and death sentence of Georgia death row inmate John Michael Davis in 1994. He also convinced the Mississippi Supreme Court to vacate the death sentence of mentally retarded inmate Gregory Montecarlo Jones in 1990. Verrilli has also served as co-counsel supporting lawyers in his firm representing several other death row inmates, and has authored several amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of advocacy organizations in capital punishment cases. He has participated in many other pro bono matters, averaging more than 200 hours per year on pro bono matter during his 16 years with Jenner & Block.

For more information on NLADA awards, visit www.nlada.org.

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The National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA) champions effective legal assistance for people who cannot afford counsel, serves as a collective voice for both civil legal services and public defense services throughout the nation and provides a wide range of services and benefits to its individual and organizational members. Founded in 1911, NLADA is the oldest and largest national, nonprofit membership organization devoting all of its resources to advocating equal access to justice for all Americans.