Lalor Living and Learning Centre tutor Matt King recently completed his final semester of a La Trobe University law degree.
But the 26-year-old didn’t spend the past few months holed up in a Bundoora classroom or studying in his local library.
From early May to mid-August, King was in and out of Louisiana prisons working with convicted felons on death row.
He worked as a volunteer with anti-capital punishment organisation Reprieve Australia in place of his final university subject.
Reprieve provides legal and humanitarian assistance to prisoners facing the death penalty around the world. It has placed students in the US since 2001 and expanded to South-East Asia last month.
King worked on the Capital Post-Conviction Project of Louisiana, which focuses on death-row inmates at post-conviction stage.
He helped work on applications or petitions, editing and reviewing them. He visited prisoners on death row and conducted juror interviews.
“Quite often, the first time they have their trial, they have a state-ordered attorney and don’t have many resources,” he says.
“Our office was federally funded and we had quite a lot of money to go through and look at all the mitigating circumstances that might not have been raised the first time.”
He said mitigating circumstances could be anything from sexual assault, poverty or even lead poisoning.
» Lalor Living and Learning Centre is at 47A French Street; call 9465 6409 or email office@lalorllc.vic.edu.au
» Reprieve Australia, reprieve.org.au
