Seattle—On October 23, 2020, Neil Fox and co-counsel Lila Silverstein received the Kathleen Taylor Civil Libertarian Award from the ACLU of Washington and the Distinguished Service Award from the Civil Rights Section of the Washington State Bar Association.
Lila Silverstein greets Neil Fox upon his arrival at her office Thursday. They are the co-counsels representing death-row defendant Allen Eugene Gregory. (Photo by Alan Berner / The Seattle Times)
They were honored for their role as defense for the case State v. Gregory (2018), which led to the invalidation of the death penalty in Washington state.
In 2012, Neil was appointed with attorney Lila Silverstein to represent a man sentenced to death for a 1996 murder. Fox and Silverstein commissioned a statistical analysis of Washington’s death penalty system which found racial bias: Black defendants in Washington were significantly more likely than other defendants to be sentenced to death. Based on the study, in October 2018, the Washington State Supreme Court struck down the death penalty because of racial bias in how the death penalty is applied.
“I have been a fan of the ACLU since I was a teenager so this truly is the honor of a lifetime,” says Fox. “We were successful in State v Gregory because of the efforts of many people. Rarely is justice achieved because of just one person.”
Currently 22 states and the District of Columbia have abolished the death penalty, and three states have a governor-imposed moratorium.
The court decision and all of the briefing can be found here.