A Self-Appointed Lawyer For The Nation's Condemned (The New York Times)

By Sara Rimer, The New York Times
Monday, October 30, 2000

Washington -- On Elisabeth Semel's bulletin board is a New Yorker cartoon that shows a man with a thick briefcase walking into an empty prison cell: "Hi, I'm your court-appointed lawyer," he announces. "Whoa! Don't tell me you've been executed already."

While it may have been a mordant joke for New Yorker readers, for Ms. Semel it defines, in a fundamental way, the parameters of her life. Death row. Incompetent, court-appointed lawyers. Speeded-up executions.

"You're in crisis mode all the time," said Ms. Semel, who was at her desk in her office on Capitol Hill, talking between phone calls, existing, it seemed, on mineral water, lattes and passion for her work as the director of the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Representation Project.

Right now she needs to find volunteer lawyers for dozens of death row inmates in Texas, Virginia, Alabama and Georgia who are without representation and are facing strict deadlines for filing state and federal appeals. At the same time, two men on federal death row in Indiana are several weeks from execution.

Ms. Semel has been a criminal defense lawyer for 25 years. Three years ago, she left the highly successful San Diego law firm she had helped found and, taking a pay cut of more than 50 percent, moved across the country to revive the bar association's death penalty project. California has executed only eight people since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, and it provides better counsel and more resources than most other states for those charged with capital murder. Ms. Semel wanted to work on behalf of death row inmates in states like Texas, which has executed 232 people since 1976, and Virginia, which has executed 76, that provide the fewest legal resources.

"I wanted closer proximity to death," she said, paraphrasing the title of a book about a group of crusading lawyers in Atlanta who represent death row inmates.

The obstacles were enormous. The federal government had eliminated all financing to help states with capital appeals, and Congress had passed a bill to speed up review of these cases in federal court. And she would be trying to recruit big law firms to take cases pro bono at a time when they were increasingly focused on profits.

She has on a wall a photograph of Calvin E. Swann, the first Virginia inmate to have his scheduled execution halted by Gov. James S. Gilmore III, who commuted the sentence to life in prison. One of Mr. Swann's relatives has inscribed it to his lawyers: "The Family!!!! With deepest gratitude." Ms. Semel helped find the New York law firm that took the case.

These days she worries about Juan Garza and David Hammer, the first federal prisoners scheduled to be executed since 1963. Both have clemency petitions before President Clinton.

The combination of recent Justice Department findings of geographic and racial disparities in the federal system and the public's growing doubts about the fairness of the administration of the death penalty, Ms. Semel said, "call on the president to refuse to permit these executions to go forward."

Mr. Garza, whose case she has been actively involved in, was convicted of three drug-related murders. But Ms. Semel never refers to him, or any of her former clients, as a murderer. "That's not how you define a human being," she said. "A human being is always more than the worst thing he's ever done. Do you deny the crime an individual has been convicted of, or the fact that he's guilty? No. But that's not who he is."

"You don't define me by saying I'm a criminal defense lawyer," she added. "That's not all I am."

What Elisabeth Semel is was shaped by her childhood in San Francisco in the 50's and 60's, as one of two children of liberal Democrats devoted to civil rights. Her father, Max, now dead, was a labor negotiator for the federal government. Her mother, Rita, was executive director of several civil rights and social action organizations and, at age 78, is still involved with such groups.

"When I was very young, I remember my parents taking me to hear Martin Luther King speak at the Cow Palace," Ms. Semel said. "I just remember being in the presence of greatness."

In the context of her family, her childhood dream of becoming a ballerina was an act of rebellion. "I went to ballet classes seven days a week," she said. "My mother adored the ballet, but that's what other people did. That's not what her daughter was going to do."

As it turned out, at 15, Ms. Semel concluded that she would not be a ballerina. "I was five feet tall," she said, "and I did not have great feet." She was probably destined to be a lawyer, she said. "The law is the greatest opportunity if you have a passion for advocacy," she said. "The death penalty is my civil rights issue," she added. "It's the ultimate expression of the legal system's unequal treatment of people who are poor, and people of color."

She gets to her office most days by 7:30. She has one lawyer on staff and one assistant. By 11 p.m., she is still working, returning e-mail messages. This is not the sort of schedule that leaves much room for a personal life. Running is how she relaxes.

A picture of Ms. Semel's sister, Jane, as a young girl, long black hair, black eyes, big smile, sits on her bookshelf. Jane was 18 when she died in an accident. Ms. Semel was 20.

"My goal was always to be more like her, and less like me," she said. "She was the kindest, most compassionate person you've ever met. She always saw the good in everyone."
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