Richard Kelly, Volunteers Pitch in to Right the Wrongs on Death Row, The Australian, April 18, 2002.

In his second tour of duty defending death penalty cases in the US, Australian Richard Bourke has learned a lot about the US justice system.

"It's laughable, it's so bad," he says.

Bourke is secretary of Reprieve Australia, a non profit group started originally in Britain to recruit volunteers to spend a three month internship in the US working to prevent executions.

His first stint in the US came as an intern with the Louisiana Crisis Assistance Center in 1998. He found the work so moving that, after 3 ½ years as a barrister in Melbourne, he suspended his practice indefinitely and returned. "I'm having a premature midlife crisis," he says.

As an example of the inadequacies of the US justice system, Bourke cites the case of Derek Landry, a Louisiana man in his early 20s who was tried, convicted and sentenced to death in less than 48 hours. Landry's attorney was a public defender nicknamed Dr Death because so many of his clients wound up on death row.

"The evidence in the case was so weak, it probably would never have even gone to trial in Victoria," says Bourke. After four years on death row, Landry has recently been granted a retrial and Bourke believes the man will be acquitted of all charges.

Quips long time death row lawyer and Reprieve UK founder Clive Stafford Smith: "That's why they call it capital punishment: those without the capital get the punishment."

Reprieve Australia was launched in May 2001 and has virtually no funding, scraping by on tiny donations, usually of less than $50. It is run entirely by volunteers such as Bourke and president Nick Harrington, another alumnus of the LCAC. Reprieve's first group of interns arrived in the US last November and the second group arrived in March.

Volunteers need not be law graduates but they are required to hold a firm conviction against the death penalty. They must be motivated: most have to pay their own air fare, room and board an estimated cost of $8000 to $10,000.

About 75 foreign volunteers (mainly from Europe and Australia) spend some time in the US every year working for legal groups specialising in defending capital cases. Britain sends the most, through a group called Amicus, and through Reprieve UK 20 to 25 students are sent every year. But the response from Australia has been impressive. In its first year, Reprieve has sent eight volunteers (five from Monash University), and it expects to send another 10 in November.

Chris Eades, 27, first arrived in the US on a three month internship from England about six years ago. He's gone prematurely grey thanks, he jokes, to the stress of his job. He didn't plan to stay longer than a few months. "I was just about to start work as a barrister, but I thought I should do something useful first," he says. "It's hard to be out here for a while and then go home. Other things seem so trivial and insignificant compared to what you work on here."

Eades scraped by in his first years, living a poverty line existence supplemented by occasional cash infusions from donors. He now lives "comfortably" on an annual salary of $US32,000 ($60,264) from the Capital Appeals Project in New Orleans, where he works as a lawyer.

It's a salary that makes it very difficult to attract American lawyers. Starting pay for New York based corporate lawyers is about $US130,000 a year, with hefty increments expected to follow. Eades's salary has declined for the past two years.

Although volunteers sign on because of their convictions about capital punishment, the US system, riddled with apparent race and economic biases, provides added motivation.

In Louisiana, for example, prosecutors are three times more likely to seek the death penalty for a black on white murder than a white on black offence. In the three states for which the Capital Appeals Project writes briefs, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida, every death row inmate is reliant on a public defender.

"The worst of all possible combinations in this country is to be a black man without money [and be accused of a capital offence]," says Eades.

Although help from overseas is welcomed by overworked agencies such as the LCAC, some in the legal system believe foreigners ought to keep out of local affairs.

The death penalty, after all, enjoys widespread support. It's approval rating in Louisiana, for example, typically hovers at about 85 per cent. "I think they should stay home," says John Sinquefield, a Baton Rouge prosecutor. "I think they should be helping out with the criminal justice system in Australia we don't really want them here."

Sinquefield dismisses the notion of inequity in the justice system as "a myth", saying the capital crimes process typically takes from eight to 20 years to run the course of appeals. He claims defendants receive "superb representation" and that the cases are examined "under a microscope".

While the appeals process may indeed take years, the quality of representation varies widely, according to experts. Though there are savvy and dedicated public defenders, there are innumerable examples of inexperienced, underprepared and indifferent lawyers who provide scant defence for clients.

REPRIEVE Australia plans to dramatically expand its operations in the coming months. It will seek volunteers from across the country this year and hopes to place students not just in other states (particularly Texas, which has executed three times more prisoners 262 than the next closest state over the past 25 years), but also in Japan, another country where the death penalty is on the books.

Soon after that, the group aims to place volunteers in Rwanda, where an astounding 150,000 people face execution for genocide. Some of the prisoners have been in custody for more than seven years without even a prosecution file created for them.

For Eleni Antonopoulos, 24, a Reprieve volunteer who arrived in March after completing her law degree at Monash, the experience has already marked her. She has been assigned everything from menial office tasks to helping with case investigations. She also regularly accompanies families visiting inmates on death row.

"I've only been here a couple of weeks and I've seen so much injustice and corruption," she says. "We are brought up to believe in the legal system, and to come here and see what's going on it's all topsy turvy. You don't know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys."