Good things...

For those of you who came with me to New Orleans, I don't think I need to repeat how much I loved my experience there. I just found the article below, written to convince others to pack their bags for a few months and make it down to the Crescent City.

So.....just incase you were not with me from January 2005, and to give you a glimspe of why these people and my work had such a massive impact on me...here it is...

New Orleans. The most I knew of this city before I volunteered there for what seems like the whole of my life was:

• I had been waiting to do this for over 7 years;
• Clive Stafford Smith upset quite a number of judges there;
• Great music and even better – fantastic cuisine;
• Tropical temperatures, which meant no fur coat was necessary; and,
• It housed the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Centre (as it was known at the time!)

After completing my pupillage and squatting for a period, I took the giant (petrifying) leap of temporarily packing in my brief career as a criminal defence barrister in the Big Smoke and armed with 4 guides to New Orleans, took that flight to the Deep South. I was terrified! In the words of Ms Cox, it was like embarking on a career as a Morris Dancer. I sensed that once this journey began, there would be no turning back. I would be changed forever. Primarily because of what I was leaving behind and secondly, not really knowing what to expect or how I would fare. That uncertainty was unnerving. Dealing with U.S. Immigration as I changed planes at Charlotte, having had no nicotine for over 12 hours, dispensed that feeling in a flash. I realised how lucky I was that my parents chose not to name me “Aisha Mohammed!” Wambui Mwangi was enough to give them reason to doubt that an African woman would travel all the way to America to work for those sentenced to death. For free! Obviously a front for terrorist activity.

New Orleans is a contradiction in terms. My relationship with the city, locals, legal institutions, prison systems, and the local wildlife[1] that inhabit your living quarters, oscillated between love and hate on a daily basis! However, from the moment I set foot at the Louis Armstrong Airport, I was made to feel totally welcome. I opted to work for a sister organisation of the Louisiana Capital Assistance Center, the Capital Appeals Project, which deals predominately with direct appeals. Simply, this is a strange U.S. appellate procedure between conviction and confirmation of the death sentence. This was most probably the best decision I have ever made in my life. The work was not only challenging, interesting and work I can continue to contribute to from almost anywhere, but the team with which I worked was small, cohesive, accessible, welcoming and great fun! The big chief called me “Miss Wambui” in a Louisiana drawl from day one and (I totally attribute blame to my XX chromosomes) I swore complete loyalty from that moment on! I was not disappointed. Jelpi Picou was the best boss anyone could ever ask for – I was a part of an amazing team minutes after I had been assigned a desk, computer and shown the stationary cupboard, to the moment I boarded the flight out, several months later.

Clive Stafford Smith once said “It's a sick world out there …” After a few seconds of reading decisions subject to appeal and the records from the trial, you realise why and the phrase “Surely, you cannot do that?” became a permanent fixture in my daily vocabulary. Whilst Louisiana criminal law, in particular in it’s relation to capital trials, may seem to make some sort of sense on paper, its application can be incomprehensible. And even more confusing, especially the more I read, was how the legislators/judiciary actually think that the law can inject an element of rationality into this system and in essence to a wholly irrational form of punishment. A true test of my faith and legal ethics was to begin, particularly after my first visit to Angola, the State penitentiary – for a visual, think “Dead Man Walking.”

New Orleans gave me the opportunity to work on some incredible and yet terrifying appeals. I don’t think I have ever learnt so much, worked so hard or had so much fun (ironic isn't it?) in such a short space of time. The reasons why this system is so prejudicial to indigent defendants and the errors permitted that seem so obviously wrong and basic, are sometimes almost too simple to put in a GCSE level law exam and yet too many to go into in this brief article. It makes any abuse of process arguments I made in London – which I was initally so proud of - pale into oblivion. Based on my experience, if I could have sent a letter to several particular DA’s/judges in Louisiana, it may have comprised of some of the points below:

1. dodgy (actually dodgy is such a tame word to describe the nature of confessions individuals are convicted on but it will do for now) confessions should be inadmissible;
2. Miranda rights are constitutional rights;
3. a defendant is entitled to a first appearance;
4. the right to counsel is normal and protected by the constitution;
5. ineffective assistance of defence counsel does include one who sleeps during a trial or walks out during cross examination of his witness to put change in the parking meter;
6. it is not nice and definitely an error to eliminate black jurors because of their race;
7. a prosecutor having his tenants on the jury could be percieved as going against the premise of an impartial jury;
8. inadmissible evidence is exactly that, regardless of how well you know the judge;
9. the State is supposed to disclose exculpatory material, including forensics that exculpate my client;
10. Prosecutors really should not blatantly lie to the State Supreme Court;
11. you do need evidence to convict a person for murder;
12. a schizophrenic, lying witness who has made several deals with the prosecution may not be a competent witness;
13. intense publicity for several months in the area the trial will be held is a good reason to consider changing the trial venue;
14. international law does apply regardless of what they think in Ohio;
15. only this once, George W. Bush may just know what he is talking about when he determines that national courts must abide by a decision of the International Court of Justice with respect to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

In short, and here comes the plug, I highly recommend this experience to anyone even remotely thinking about it. New Orleans is a fantastic city. The Capital Appeals Project is a truly worthy establishment to spend any number of months doing voluntary work. If you are looking for a life altering experience, mixed with a highly toxic and addictive cocktail of daily challenges, hard work, good food, wonderful music, great company and constant parades that encourage grown men to cover themselves in gaudy multi-coloured beads, you will not be disappointed. And if you are lucky, as I was, someone might just pay for you to go and do it!

[1] Translate that into the biggest cockroaches you have ever seen.