Drinkard was released just one month before the hearing after being imprisoned for seven years, five of them on Alabama's death row.

Drinkard had been convicted for a murder that occurred in 1993. Bright told the Committee that Drinkard was represented at his first trial by one lawyer who did collections and commercial work, another who represented creditors in foreclosures and bankruptcy cases, and a recent law graduate. 

The lawyers appointed to represent Drinkard at his first trial failed to present the testimony of either of two doctors who would have told the jury that Mr. Drinkard had a severe back injury that made it physically impossible for him to commit the crime and an elderly man who was by the Drinkard home with a friend the evening of the crime and could have told the jury that Mr. Drinkard was at home at evening of the crime and barely able to move. When those witnesses were presented at a second trial that occurred after Drinkard's original conviction was overturned on appeal, the jury acquitted. Link to Drinkard story here

The hearing concerned Title II of the Act, which contains provisions designed to improve the quality of legal representation for people facing the death penalty. It would establish a national commission to adopt reasonable minimum standards for counsel at each stage of a capital case, require each state to establish an independent authority to appoint lawyers to defend the poor, and provide for grants to help states improve the representation provided to poor people facing the death penalty. (Another portion of the Act provides for DNA testing for people who may have been wrongfully convicted.) 

In opening the hearing, Senator Leahy held up enlarged copies of newspaper articles about the release of Drinkard and others who were condemned to die but later exonerated. Senator Leahy said that the Act "proposes some basic, common-sense reforms to our criminal justice system. The goal of our bill is simple, but profoundly important: To reduce the risk of mistaken executions." "We have been very fortunate that the innocence of some of those condemned to die in our courts has been discovered by sheer happenstance and good luck," Bright told the Committee, pointing out instances where innocence was established by the journalism class at Northwestern University or by lawyers who volunteered their services.

Congressman William Delahunt introducing the Innocence Protection Act in the U.S. House of Representatives on March 30, 2000. Behind him, from left to right are, Senator Patrick Leahy, the principal sponsor of the bill in the Senate, Gov. George Ryan of Illinois, who declared a moratorium on executions in that state, Congressman Ray LaHood, Republican of Illinois, a co-sponsor of the Act, Center director Stephen B. Bright, who has testified in support of the Act before committees in both the Senate and the House, and Curt Bloodsworth, who was freed from prison after DNA evidence cleared him of the crime for which he was sentenced to die.

But he warned, "For the vast majority of those sentenced to death, there are no journalism students or volunteer lawyers who come forward and examine their cases." 

Bright told the Committee, "The major reason that innocent people are being sentenced to death is because the representation provided to the poor in capital cases is often a scandal. The state legislatures have been unwilling to provide the resources and structure necessary to provide competent legal representation. And the courts have been willing to tolerate representation that is an embarrassment to our legal system and the legal profession." 

The Committee also heard from Michael Graham, who spent 14 years on Louisiana's death row until he was exonerated in 2000. He was wrongly convicted in 1987 of killing an elderly couple in Louisiana. 

Graham told the Committee that he was given a lawyer fresh from law school and another who had never tried a death penalty case. "My trial only lasted a few days. When the jury convicted me of capital murder, I was stunned. So was my experienced lawyer, who disappeared," said Graham, who was left with the recent graduate to represent him in the sentencing phase of the trial. 

``When the jury sentenced me to death, I could hardly talk, I was in such a state of shock,'' Graham said. "During my 14 wasted years on death row, I always hoped that my nightmare would count for something. That's why I'm here today. Mistakes like my nightmare are real."

Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), a co-sponsor of the Act in the Senate, and Congressmen William Delahunt (D-MA) and Ray LaHood (R-IL), principal co-sponsors of the Act in the House of Representatives, also testified at the hearng in favor of the bill. Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR), another co-sponsor, submitted a statement in support of the bill. 

Other witnesses who appeared before the Committee were Alabama Attorney General William H. Pryor Jr. ; Texas State Senator Rodney G. Ellis; Philadelphia Deputy District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg; Beth A. Wilkinson, who prosecuted Timothy McVeigh and is now at the Washington law firm of Latham & Watkins; and South Carolina Deputy Solicitor Kenneth S. Brackett 

The Innocence Protection Act, S. 486

Statement of Stephen Bright

Statement of Senator Patrick J. Leahy

Statements of others who testified before the Committee

Bright, along will Illinois Governor George Ryan, former Florida Chief Justice Gerald Kogan of Florida, New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer and others testified in June 2000 regarding the bill before the Subcommittee on Crime of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Statements made at hearings on June 20, 2000, before the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee

Representative Bobby Scott of Virginia, Center director Stephen Bright and Peter Neufeld of the Innocence Project after hearings on the Innocence Protection Act of 2000 in the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.