'In the US, who you kill is more important than who you are'

Clive Stafford Smith quit journalism for law to try to save Americans on death row. Now, after 26 years of tireless campaigning, he tells Diane Taylor why he's coming home
Clive Stafford Smith has come home to the UK for a brief visit: an award ceremony, a lobby of MSPs in Scotland, a handful of media interviews and then back to the US to continue the work which has made him famous - preventing the executions of those biding their time on death row.

While he is here, he is busy publicising the case of Kenny Richey, a Scottish man on death row who has been convicted of arson and the aggravated murder of a two-year-old girl who died in a fire in Ohio. He has appealed to MSPs to speak out about the case and says there is compelling evidence to prove Richey's innocence.

The kinked logic of Dan Gershultz, the state prosecutor in Ohio in the Richey case, perplexes him. Despite his acknowledgment that new evidence has come to light since Richey's trial that may establish his innocence, he argues that the execution can still go ahead "because the prosecution did not know that the scientific testimony offered at the trial was false and unreliable".

Amnesty International says it is one of the most compelling cases of innocence its campaigners have seen. The case is on its way back to the federal court after an airing at the Ohio supreme court on a point of law and Stafford Smith and his team have been given 30 days to file additional briefs.

The 44-year-old left England for the US 26 years ago to take up a scholarship to study journalism. But after interviewing scores of death row inmates, he switched to studying law, deciding that he could have more impact on saving the lives of this condemned group by advocating for them in court than by writing articles about their plight. He has represented around 300 death row inmates to date and since the US started detaining men in Guantánamo Bay on suspicion of terrorism he has taken up the cases of 45 of the 595 men currently held there.

Stafford Smith is the founder of Reprieve, a charity that provides legal and humanitarian assistance to impoverished people facing the death penalty at the hands of the state in the US and the Caribbean. Some of his financial support comes from Reprieve and he is also receiving funding from global financier George Soros for his Guantánamo work.

His campaigning legal work has been acclaimed internationally and he is in possession of a clutch of honours including an OBE and The Lawyer's lifetime achievement award. His latest accolade and the reason for this trip to the UK is his receipt of the Burns International humanitarian award.

He plans to return here in August with his wife Emily to live, in what he jokes is "parole on my 26-year life sentence in the US". He is returning because Emily wants to be closer to her parents. But a few thousand miles separating him from his office in New Orleans won't alter his work.

"I'll still be going to the US to try a bunch of capital cases," he says. "And for the Guantánamo stuff, it doesn't make any difference where I'm based because I'm not allowed to meet the clients. I can at least meet their families though and they are based in Europe and the Middle East, not in the US."

Ideally, he would like to represent all the Guantánamo detainees but knows that is unrealistic. "If there are a hundred lawyers out there who would like to help, I'd love to hear from them."

The Guantánamo work is, he says, a logical addition to his anti-death-penalty work. "My passion for the moment is Guantánamo because that's the death penalty to the power of 10. I visited the Yemen about a month ago and talked to about 30 families there. These poor folk have no money and no contacts; they're desperate. I was astounded by the uniformity of their stories. Their family members went to Pakistan to get jobs; they weren't religious."

"They used to love the US, they thought it was all Hollywood, but now they hate it. There's such hypocrisy on America's part to say they are fighting a war to establish democracy when the first thing they do is drag everyone off to Cuba and deny them their legal rights. Hypocrisy is the yeast of hatred. If you want to inspire people to hate you then act as sanctimonious hypocrites."

In the light of this hatred, he has already been assessing his chances of survival if he was sitting on a plane hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists. "I've got a UK and US passport and my wife has an Australian one. Between us, we represent the "coalition of the willing". We'd be the first ones to be chucked out of the plane."

His work against the death penalty and on behalf of Guantánamo Bay detainees hasn't won him friends and influence among many members of the US public. "I've had some amazing hate calls saying things like: 'This is treason and you should be shot.' I don't know how these people track down my home phone number."

Stafford Smith seems unperturbed. Hate is what he believes is at the root of many of the draconian penalties meted out by the US legal system. "America is not a country the UK understands. People [there] are inspired to hate small groups to distract them from the real problems of life. I think America's undiluted focus is on selfishness and on making money. As if making money is relevant when you die."

He laughs. Though utterly intense about his work, as a human being he is very laid back. "I can't get too upset about America or I'd spend the whole time with my blood pressure up," he says. But he doesn't look as if too much tranquility would suit him. "Life without stress would be so boring. I can't imagine going on holiday for a long time and twiddling my thumbs."

He takes great delight in his clashes with judges and prosecutors and recounts with glee tales of errant judges. Once, a member of his team covertly monitored the excessive alcohol intake of a judge at lunchtime and then the matter was raised before the court in the afternoon. Another time, he successfully challenged a judge's anti-racist credentials and his use of the word "nigger". He has also exposed judges for links with prosecutors or for taking bribes.

"Probably in about 50% of capital cases we move to kick the judge off the case," he says cheerfully. "America has a much better legal system than England; it's just in its application that it's a catastrophe. In the right hands it's a wonderful, wonderful system. For example, you can subpoena the president. The US legal system is full of absurdities but if you get a just result, that's OK."

Although Stafford Smith's work is stimulating, representing death row inmates is harrowing and he says he suffers post-traumatic stress syndrome as a result of witnessing some of his clients' executions. "I get horrible flash backs of the shaved head of one of my clients," he says.

Although he will soon be based in London, he will continue to focus on the area of US law he has spent more than two decades building up expertise in. "I don't know anything about English law and I'm not really interested in it, although there are individual civil liberties lawyers here who I would love to work with."

His position against the death penalty has been absolutely consistent. He says his awareness of the essential wrong dawned at the age of 12 when he learned of the horrible fate of Joan of Arc. Around 60% of those he represents are black - nationally 42% of those on death row are black. "Around 95% of people on death row are accused of killing white people. Who you kill is far more important than who you are."

While the desire to preserve life is part of what drives him to challenge the death penalty, Stafford Smith says that his real impetus is to defend those who are not best placed to defend themselves "I don't like to see people who are defenceless being picked on, particularly when it's the state picking on them. These people need to be held to account."

But although only six of the 300 or so death row cases he has taken on have been lost, he says there is often not much cause for celebration. "Getting someone a life sentence instead is not a glorious victory."

He does not believe in prison, and while he thinks that people who are a danger to others need to be held in secure locations such as hospitals, where they can be helped, punishment is not something he advocates. "Justice isn't a word I use a lot because it pre-supposes there is some sort of justice in punishment, which there isn't.

"I think the world would be a far better place if we all treated everyone else as if they were our brother or our sister instead of someone else's brother or sister."

· Information about Reprieve at reprieve.org

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