The two lawyers appointed to represent Mr. Fugate filed just three pre-trial one-page motions, only one of which cited a case. When asked by the judge, the attorneys refused to seek funds for an investigator, an expert or any other purpose. One of the lawyers later testified that he could not recall having an investigator in any case and may have had an expert in only one case in over 40 years of practicing law. The lawyers engaged in no plea negotiations. They did not object even once during the brief trial.

The lawyers were were ignorant of the law. One lawyer later testified that he had never heard of Furman v. Georgia, the decision by the United States Supreme Court striking down Georgia's death penalty law in 1972, or Gregg v. Georgia, a decision by the Supreme Court in 1976 upholding the death penalty statute adopted by Georgia in response to Furman. The lawyer could not name any criminal law decision from any court.

The issue at the guilt-innocence phase of the trial was whether the shooting was accidental or intentional. From the time he voluntarily turned himself in to police, Mr. Fugate steadfastly maintained that the gun discharged accidentally. However, his court-appointed counsel presented no evidence that the gun was susceptible to accidental firing, failed to impeach the state's only witness with a pretrial statement that flatly contradicted his trial testimony, and failed to present other evidence on this critical issue. In the absence of any adversarial testing of the prosecution's case, the jury found Mr. Fugate guilty.

The court-appointed lawyers did no better at the penalty phase. The jury did not learn of this evidence of Mr. Fugate's life and background because the court-appointed lawyers waited until the month of trial to even begin to look for mitigating evidence. Moreover, the inexperienced lawyers did not know how to present what they did find in that little time. The jury sentenced Mr. Fugate to death after a 27-minute sentencing phase.

The Center's attorneys took responsibility for representing Mr. Fugate after his case was affirmed on direct appeal by the Georgia Supreme Court. In state and federal post-conviction review, they demonstrated that the design of the gun had been changed because it was susceptible to accidental discharge and that the sole eyewitness who claimed at trial that he saw the shooting had told police immediately after the incident that he did not see it. They also presented the testimony of family, employers, friends and neighbors who described Wallace Fugate's long history of gainful employment, military service, and community service. Employers considered him reliable and hard working. Neighbors considered him an exceptionally decent man because of the help he had provided on numerous occasions, every time refusing to accept anything in return.

Nevertheless, state and federal courts upheld the conviction and sentence. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles denied clemency in the summer of 2002. The Center's lawyers and staff made several final efforts to prevent his execution, challenging lethal injection, the consideration of secret information by the Board of Pardons and Paroles, and the excessive nature of the punishment when compared to other cases in which less severe sentences were imposed. Those efforts were unsuccessful and Wallace Fugate became the thirtieth person put to death by Georgia under the death penalty statute it adopted in 1973. He was the seventh person executed by lethal injection.

Center director Stephen Bright, one of the lawyers who represented Wallace Fugate said that his death was the result of "massive failures in Georgia's legal system."

Click here for Statement of Stephen Bright regarding the execution of Wallace Fugate.

Click here for Brief to U.S. Court of Appeals regarding legal representation

Click here for Challenge to Lethal Injection

Click here for Challenge to Board of Pardons and Paroles

Click here for a Web site created by Mr. Fugate's family in his honor