On January 18, 2025, my groupmates and I conducted a Zoom interview with Louise Normand, a seasoned lawyer with over 30 years of experience and a member of London’s Death Penalty Project. In her role, she works to secure the release of clients from death row. We asked her about the nature of her work and which communities are most impacted by the death penalty.

We learned that the Death Penalty Project is dedicated to overturning death row sentences by providing free legal representation. Founded in 1992, the organization has thrived over the years, offering capacity-building and training programs for its lawyers, as well as publishing articles and hosting debates on various cases. Normand shared that they recently succeeded in helping to abolish the death penalty in Zimbabwe.

Normand also explained how issues of false imprisonment contribute to the continued use of the death penalty in some countries. Although she did not have detailed information on the situation in the United States, she provided extensive insights into practices in regions like Asia. According to her, many clients in those areas come from vulnerable backgrounds. In her experience, drug trafficking laws often result in the death penalty being applied to associates rather than targeting the true orchestrators, illustrating how individuals from impoverished communities are particularly susceptible to exploitation.