News Article

In recognition of his work on behalf of convicted murderer Alan Gell, Womble Carlyle attorney Jim Cooney will receive the North Carolina Bar Association's 2004 William L. Thorp Pro Bono Award -- the Bar Association's highest honor for an individual who has provided exemplary legal services to a person of limited means.

Cooney was co-counsel in the appeal of Alan Gell, a North Carolina death row inmate convicted in 1995 of murdering Allen Ray Jenkins. While maintaining his private practice with Womble Carlyle's Business Litigation Practice Group, Cooney logged more than 1,000 pro bono hours and spent three years working to free Gell, whom Cooney believed was wrongly convicted of the murder. During February 2004, the work of Cooney and his team of lawyers paid off when Gell became the 113th death row inmate in the United States to be exonerated under the modern death penalty system, and the 5th North Carolina death row inmate to be released since 1990.

"This award is designed to recognize an attorney who has dedicated himself to increasing access to legal services on the part of low-income citizens in North Carolina," said Tom Berkau, N.C. Bar's Public Service Advisory Committee chairman. "Jim Cooney's devout dedication to individuals such as Alan Gell makes him the best candidate for this year's award. We are honored to have someone like him receive this high award."

During 2001, Cooney joined Mary Pollard, then an associate with Womble Carlyle, in defending Gell. The team began to review the evidence against Gell and found that he had been convicted and sentenced to die based on the uncorroborated testimony of two teenage girls, both of whom had entered into extensive plea bargains with the state. During the course of the investigation and trial, the girls had given more than 15 different statements, all of which contradicted each other.

In addition, the attorneys found that the only date that Gell could have killed Jenkins was April 3, 1995 because all other times between April 3 and April 14 -- the day Jenkins body was discovered -- Gell was in jail. In the attorney general's files were 17 statements from witnesses who told police that they had seen Jenkins alive after April 3, and at that time Gell was in jail. Based on these facts, Cooney and his defense team secured a retrial and added Joe Cheshire from Cheshire, Parker, Schneider, Bryan & Vitale of Raleigh to the defense team. The case of State v. Gell was retried in February 2004. After two weeks of trial a jury took little time to find Alan Gell not guilty. Gell walked out of the courtroom a free man, having spent a total of more than nine years in prison, six of which were on death row for a crime that he did not commit.

While Gell's acquittal is a legal milestone that has drawn significant national and local media attention, it is only the latest of many similar pro bono successes that Cooney has had throughout his career. He also represented Allen Gaines in 1993 in the first-degree murder trial of a Charlotte police officer. Gaines was convicted but Cooney convinced the jury to sentence Gaines to life in prison instead of death. In 1994 Cooney secured the reversal of a death sentence given to Fred Coffey--Coffey was later sentenced to life in prison as a result of this reversal. Cooney also recently handled the appeal of a North Carolina man convicted of double murders. Cooney convinced the Fourth Circuit to overturn a federal death penalty sentence because of errors made by the judge during the sentencing phase. This was the first reversal of a federal death penalty case in the country.

"Jim Cooney has made many extraordinary efforts to provide pro bono legal services to those who need them," said Keith Vaughan, Womble Carlyle managing member. "Jim's ability to be completely devoted to his underprivileged pro bono clients while successfully maintaining his business litigation practice at Womble Carlyle is proof that he is a person of the utmost integrity, loyalty and honor. We are very proud to have him as one of our attorneys at Womble Carlyle."

In his business litigation practice at Womble Carlyle, Cooney focuses in the areas of medical malpractice defense, criminal defense, commercial litigation, appellate practice and catastrophic torts. Cooney was admitted to the North Carolina bar in 1984. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern, Middle and Western Districts of North Carolina, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court and all North Carolina State courts. He is also a Fellow in the American College of Trial Lawyers.

Cooney will receive the N.C. Bar Association's 2004 William L. Thorp Pro Bono Award at the organization's 106th Annual Meeting on June 18th at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, N.C.