The
Common Sense Foundation is North Carolina's progressive think tank promoting
fairness, justice, and opportunity in the state public-policy
debate.
The Common Sense Foundation has just released a groundbreaking study on mental illness and the death penalty.
Click here to learn about the more than 10% of death-row inmates in North Carolina who could be executed despite being diagnosed as severely mentally ill.
The names may be familiar: Ronald Cotton. Lee Wayne Hunt. Dwayne Dail.
But their cases are complex, stretching out over years of prison and appeals and setbacks. Two have been exonerated, but one remains in prison, based on the testimony of two questionable witnesses and erroneous FBI ballistics tests.
Rich Rosen, who is retiring this year from UNC School of Law, has been central to these men's lives, as a pro bono representative to two of them, and as a founder of an organization that has championed their cases and many others like them.
Ronald Cotton was freed in 1995, exonerated after DNA evidence showed he did not commit the rape he was in prison for. He had served 10 1/2 years. Rich, along with Burlington lawyer Tom Lambeth, represented him pro bono. Since 1989, 218 people have been freed by DNA evidence showing they didn't commit the crime they were in prison for, according to the Innocence Project.
Lee Wayne Hunt was convicted in 1986 of murdering two people in Fayetteville, based on the testimony of two questionable witnesses and what turned out to be erroneous ballistics testimony from the FBI lab. His case was featured on 60 Minutes, as part of a joint project with The Washington Post. Rich, along with UNC law professor Ken Broun, continues to represent him.
Hunt's case, after being rejected in January by the N.C. Supreme Court for a retrial, is now going in front of the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission -- a body created by the General Assembly in 2006, the first such state panel in the country to evaluate innocence claims. Rich was one of the people involved in that commission's creation.
Dwayne Dail walked out of prison last August -- thanks to Christine Mumma, one of Rich's former students and the current director of The North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence, where Rich is still a board member. Rich recruited her for that job.
After Cotton was freed, Mumma recalls, hundreds of prisoners wrote Rich. "He couldn't live without providing those people some support." That concern led to the beginning of collaborations to create innocence projects in North Carolina that now include all seven of the state's law schools: Campbell University, UNC-Charlotte, Duke University, Elon University, North Carolina Central University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University. UNC School of Journalism is also engaged in the project.
Rich Rosen is, in one way or another, deeply involved with most major organizations in the state that work on preventing and reversing wrongful convictions, as well as those working to overturn the death penalty in North Carolina
"It's heroic," said Ken Rose, senior attorney at the Center for Death Penalty Litigation, where Rich currently serves as president of the board. "Rich has been a fighter for his entire career."
But, Rose and others say, it's not just about Rich's firm and principled dedication to pro bono cases and the multitude of organizations he's helped create and sustain. It's also about his academic career of writing and thinking about the law -- from an influential article on the problematic category of "especially heinous" crimes that overturned cases nationwide, to his helping the emerging nation of Eritrea write its legal codes.
Above and beyond that, Rich's teaching has influenced a generation of lawyers trained at UNC. And all of this is done without fanfare or an iota of self-promotion.
"He changed my life, basically," says Mumma, who donates her time as a lawyer and director of The NC Center on Actual Innocence. She was The News & Observer's most recent Tar Heel of the Year, largely based on her work at the Center. "He was the person who turned me from corporate law to criminal law. I wouldn't have changed my career direction if it weren't for my admiration for him."
That view is not exceptional.
"When I go out and talk with alumni and say, 'Who mattered at the law school?' Rich Rosen's name comes up over and over again," says Jack Boger, Dean of the UNC School of Law. "Not just because of the content and the strong demands he made on the students, but because of his inherent humane professional values. Who are the souls of the law school? He's one of those."
Tort reform is a perennial issue, especially around election time, when the very words seem to evoke responsible government and good stewardship. Common Sense Foundation says that North Carolina should reject tort reform. It limits citizens' basic rights, and it's simply bad policy pushed by powerful special interests, from insurance companies to tobacco companies to right-wing think tanks.Instead, North Carolina should address the real and complicated reasons for rising insurance and medical costs: inflation in the costs of prescription drugs, skyrocketing administrative costs, and private, for-profit insurance and medical facilities.
All of North Carolina's children deserve equal access to education.
The community college system took a step backward last week in barring undocumented immigrants -- a tiny portion of the total community college student body -- from attending classes. The Fayetteville Observer published an excellent editorial on the issue May 19. Common Sense is one of more than 80 adovacy groups across North Carolina that have signed on to the following statement:
"We, the undersigned North Carolina organizations, support the principle that all qualified students have access to education at NC's community colleges. We believe that the education of our youth is essential to the improvement of the quality of life for all North Carolinians..." more
This fall, Common Sense Foundation will be releasing a new study on the links between mental illness and those who receive the death penalty in North Carolina. That study is just the newest of a series of reports that Common Sense has done on the death penalty:
Its landmark 2001 report Race and the Death Penalty in North Carolina, based on data collected from court records of 502 murder cases from 1993 to 1997, found that race plays a significant role in who gets the death penalty.
Its 2002 study, Disciplined Lawyers, showing that those on death row often had the state's worst lawyers defending them
Its 2003 study, 10 Terrible Injustices, highlighting 10 men on death row whose cases were left out of public debate
Its 2006 study, Death Row Injustices, which showed that at least 37 people on death row did not have qualified attorneys
Click
here to hear Chris Fitzsimon, director of NC Policy Watch interview CSF Executive Director David Mills about the 2006 Common Sense Foundation death-penalty study and its eye-opening findings that at least 37 people now
on death row had lawyers who would not even qualify under today's standards.
Events Page
Our Annual Thomas Paine Award Dinner is scheduled for 6 p.m., Wednesday, September 10. Rich Rosen, UNC law professor and justice advocate, will receive our 2008 Thomas Paine Award for his willingness to take on the powerful on the issue of the death penalty, for his work on behalf of those wrongly accused of a crime, and for his influence on students and the legal field itself. N.C. Center on Actual Innocence Executive Director Christine Mumma will host Rich's award ceremony at her home in Durham. Contact our development director Scott Browning if you're interested in becoming a sponsor or host.
Common Sense Foundation to hold its annual Message Madness workshop in January 2009
Do you, or someone you know, work for a non-profit? Have you ever felt intimidated about speaking to your legislator or writing an op-ed in your local newspaper? Are you a concerned citizen who would like to learn more about the process of lobbying government officials? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you're a perfect candidate for the Common Sense Foundation's annual grassroots training program, Message Madness. (Click here for a brochure of our 2007 Message Madness. Click here to see a two-minute video of Message Madness 2006. You will need QuickTime to view the video; to download QuickTime, click here)
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