ACLU Complaint Charges Corrections Officials with Effectively Denying Prisoner Facing Execution Right to Appeal for Clemency

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 16, 2010

Montgomery, AL – The American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama late yesterday filed a civil rights complaint charging top state correctional officials with violating the constitutional rights of a prisoner facing execution by refusing to provide prison records crucial to his petition for clemency.

Michael Jeffrey Land, on death row since 1994 and currently scheduled to be executed on August 12, requested in May that the Alabama Department of Corrections provide him with any and all records in its possession related to his time in prison, arguing that the records would be essential in his preparation of a comprehensive clemency request. According to the ACLU’s complaint, the records would show that Land has been an exemplary prisoner since arriving on death row and that he has not had a single documented disciplinary incident during his 16 years in prison. The records would also show that Land completed college courses while incarcerated, earned an associate’s degree and that he has been an exemplary worker on death row.

“Denying Mr. Land access to these vitally important records is fundamentally unjust,” said Olivia Turner, Executive Director of the ACLU of Alabama. “Clemency requests are the last opportunity condemned prisoners have of arguing for their lives and they should be given access to all relevant information.”

According to the ACLU’s complaint, clemency, a deeply-rooted tradition in American law, is an important safeguard against miscarriages of justice, and the right to due process in state clemency proceedings is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

“Preventing any death row prisoner, including Mr. Land, from fully presenting his or her case during a clemency hearing is a blatant violation of constitutionally-protected due process rights,” said Turner.

According to the ACLU’s complaint, a person seeking clemency has full discretion in determining the content of their clemency petition and may choose to include any information that might be deemed useful to the Governor’s clemency decision. Land should have considerable latitude regarding the materials to incorporate into his petition, including testimonials from prison personnel and relevant matters from his institutional records, according to the complaint.

According to the complaint, corrections officials have refused to provide Land with his prison records because they are “not considered a public record” and taken the position that Land can be provided only those documents prisoners would be given during “the normal course of business during his incarceration within the Department of Corrections.” Such material would represent only a tiny fraction of Mr. Land’s prison record and renders Mr. Land and his legal counsel unable to prepare an effective and complete clemency package for the Governor’s review.

Additional information about the ACLU of Alabama is available online at www.aclualabama.org

###