CUA Law professor Cara Drinan is working with a team of lawyers who filed a clemency petition on behalf of Mr. Ivan Teleguz on Friday, April 7, 2017, as described in a press release. Teleguz is scheduled to be executed in Virginia on April 25, 2017, unless Governor McAuliffe intervenes. The clemency petition, supplemented by a statement from Professor Drinan as an expert on criminal justice matters, offers substantial evidence of Teleguz's innocence and highlights sentencing phase errors, as well as deficiencies in Teleguz's trial representation.
Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., who served as Maryland's 60th governor from 2003 to 2007, also supported the petition for clemency. Ehrlich oversaw two executions as governor of Maryland, while also maintaining a robust clemency practice for cases of error beyond judicial remedy like the one Teleguz presents.
In 2013, CUA Law partnered with Ehrlich to provide direct legal representation to clemency applicants, to educate executive actors about the vital need for clemency, and to support scholarship and public education regarding executive clemency.
Press Release: Attorneys for Ivan Teleguz, who Virginia plans to execute on April 25 despite evidence of innocence, file petition with Governor McAuliffe requesting clemency
From: Elizabeth Peiffer, Virginia Capital Representation Resource Center
Michael F. Williams, Kirkland & Ellis LLP
Date: April 7, 2017
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Teleguz's petition is supported by a statement from Professor Cara H. Drinan, a nationally recognized expert in criminal justice reform and a manager of the Catholic University of America Law/Ehrlich Partnership on Clemency. Prof. Drinan notes that clemency is appropriately used to prevent miscarriages of justice the courts are unable to address, and believes that the troubling circumstances in Teleguz's case fit well with individual grants of clemency made by other executives across the country, more than half of which involve substantial doubt about guilt; disproportionality of the death sentence as compared to other defendants; and failure of counsel. Prof. Drinan points out that Teleguz's case involves all three. She concludes that Teleguz "presents precisely the kind of case for which clemency was designed. . . . Procedural limitations of collateral proceedings since Mr. Teleguz's trial have prevented the courts from making a full and fair assessment of the new evidence and the propriety of Mr. Teleguz's conviction and death sentence."
Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., who served as Maryland's 60th governor from 2003 to 2007, also supports the petition for clemency. Ehrlich oversaw two executions as governor of Maryland, while also maintaining a robust clemency practice for cases of error beyond judicial remedy like the one Teleguz presents.