Alan Freedman '71
Every Life Has Value
by Kate Abu-Absi | July 9, 2025
The court of public opinion is powerful but not stagnant and in our criminal justice system, no issue is more debated than the death penalty. While statistically most Americans still support the death penalty, the level of acceptance has eroded over time. Because of organizations such as The Innocence Project, we have heard about men and women who are wrongly convicted, and studies show that approximately 4% of all death row inmates are innocent. That in and of itself is a motivation to take on death penalty appeals, but what about the people who are not innocent, but have received unjust death sentences? Who stands with them? At the center of this story is our alum, Alan Freedman 鈥�71, whose career is so remarkable you will wonder how the College of Law has not already featured him. Mr. Freedman wants to make one thing very clear. He is not a hero. He is simply a man with the core belief that every life has value and the capacity to set himself, his ego, his emotional wellbeing, his financial wellbeing, aside in defense of another human being.
In 2019, the year Alan Freedman retired, an average of 264 months elapsed between sentencing and execution for inmates on death row in the United States. This is an increase from 1990, when an average of 95 months passed between sentencing and execution. I share these statistics because taking on a death penalty appeal is like going into battle with no end in sight and Alan Freedman has spent 30 years fighting for dozens of death row prisoners. He has successfully won 34 appeals, 34 lives saved, but one of those 34 is a cautionary example of how our flawed system can obstruct justice.
The Michelle Byrom capital murder case stands out as unique for several reasons. To begin, she was Alan Freedman鈥檚 only female death row client, the crime and subsequent appeals took place in Mississippi, she was a battered wife accused of hiring someone to kill her husband, she had a letter written by her son, which clearly states that he masterminded the crime, and she was the victim of rampant judicial misconduct. It was also the case that introduced Alan Freedman to Sister Helen Prejean who wrote Dead Man Walking and is a vocal advocate on behalf of all death row inmates regardless of their guilt.
By the time Alan Freedman joined the fight to save Michelle Byrom she had spent six years on death row, and as the only women, she was essentially in solitary confinement. Evidence of serious constitutional violations had been discovered, including suppression of evidence by the judge, and her defense team (led by Alan and felt confident that the court would rule in their favor of their petition. But after five years the courts denied their petition and Michelle was slated to become the first women to be execution in the state of Mississippi in 70 years.
Michelle was not executed, and after 14 years behind bars, Alan Freedman had the very rare opportunity to walk her out of prison. You can take a deeper dive into the case by watching 聽but know in advance that she was not saved by the system, but by the court of public opinion. Her impending execution and all the safeguards that failed her were discovered and reported by a local journalist. As people became aware of the injustice that surrounded the case, a grassroots campaign aided by Sister Helen Prejean saved her at the 11th hour.
I highly recommend you watch the documentary to learn about the case, and to hear from Alan Freedman himself. While Michelle鈥檚 case is one of his wins, you can feel the emotional exhaustion of far too close a call.
Q&A with Alan Freedman
How did you decide on Toledo Law for your legal education?
I graduated from Hartwick College in Oneonta, NY in June 1969 with a B.A. in history.
My parents talked me into applying to law school because they did not think I was
ready to join the workforce since I had no working experience. I was an only child,
shy, and had mild cerebral palsy. I limp with my right leg. Toledo Law School accepted
me into the program because at that time they had an open-admission policy.
What did you find difficult about your time in law school?
I struggled in law school because I had difficulty writing. (I subsequently learned
at the age of 55 that I write with the reading part of my brain because of my cerebral
palsy. I found this out while preparing a neuropsychologist for an evidentiary hearing.
I said to him, 鈥淗ow do you know this without testing me?鈥� The doctor responded by
saying, 鈥淵ou did hire me as an expert, didn鈥檛 you?鈥�)
What was your first position after law school? How did you find it?
After graduation I moved to Chicago, IL to be independent of my parents and chose
a city that had good transportation because I didn鈥檛 drive a car. I passed the Illinois
bar on the first attempt in May 1972. I was looking for a desk job, possibly in a
bank. Certainly, I was not looking for a job arguing cases in a courtroom. I couldn鈥檛
find any job. I ultimately signed up to volunteer in VISTA and I was assigned to the
Legal Aid Foundation of Chicago (LAF). There began the strange journey of my legal
career.
I was raised in a white suburb of Massapequa, NY. At LAF I was assigned to work in two African American neighborhood offices on the south side of Chicago, Woodlawn and Bronzeville. I developed empathy for people who are poor, oppressed and downtrodden. I was primarily assigned to represent people in eviction proceedings and welfare hearings. After my VISTA tenure was up, I was hired by LAF as a staff attorney. I remained there for seven years.
What are some of the struggles you have encountered in your career and how did you
navigate them?
I resigned from LAF after being one of the union negotiators for the first union contract.
I represented the secretarial staff at union negotiations with other lawyers. After
the contract was signed, it was time for me to go into private practice. I formed
a partnership with Bruce Bornstein and started the firm Freedman and Bornstein. I
was trying to transfer into a more traditional general practice, for example, doing
real estate closings, wills, divorces, and some light personal injury cases. I simply
hated it. It was not for me. We started to do police misconduct cases, suing police
officers for use of excessive force in the city of Chicago and defending officers
in race discrimination cases in the suburbs. To supplement our income, we took criminal
appeal appointments.
What are some of your career highlights?
The biggest turn in my journey of practicing law was when I was solicited to handle
a death penalty post-conviction case in Illinois. The death penalty community in Illinois
and Indiana, the Seventh Circuit region, was starting to be concerned that executions
would start to take place. I believe the death penalty is unjust. I found my true
calling in 1990. I separated from my partner and formed the Midwest Center for Justice
with Carol Heise, who is both a lawyer and psychologist, to defend people on death
row at the final stages of their appeal.
I took a case in Indiana because no one else wanted to represent this person. The record was a mess. In the end the Indiana Supreme Court set a final date for execution. The Indiana Supreme Court refused to appoint me in a successor post-conviction petition and asked me to withdraw from the case. I refused to withdraw and continued to represent him for free. The federal district court denied a federal habeas petition and the U.S. Court of Appeals quickly dismissed the case, denying the appeal 2-1. I filed a petition for rehearing en banc. After my client had his final meal, the full court gave my client a stay, within four hours of execution. I argued and won the en banc appeal. (Although after further appeals we ultimately lost the case years later and my client was executed, after having cert denied by one vote.)
What have you found most satisfying about your career thus far?
After this case, over the next 30 years, public defenders in other states started
to solicit me to handle last-ditch appeals in difficult cases no one else wanted.
I proceeded to handle death penalty cases throughout Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky,
Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana. My co-counsels, primarily Larry Komp and Marie
Donnelly, and I won about 34 cases. Unfortunately, I had nine clients that were put
to death.
In 30 years, I personally argued 41 death penalty appeals. Thirty-one were in the federal system, including one appointment in the United States Supreme Court. I had three other SCOTUS cases in the Court鈥檚 鈥渟hadow鈥� docket (without oral argument). I won one of those case. I also argued four cases en banc in multiple circuits. During my 47 years of practice, I argued approximately a little under 100 cases in various appellate courts and worked on hundreds of others.
Do you have any suggestions for law students/new lawyers interested in a similar career
path?
This journey of the practice of law clearly shows that even an average student like
me from a moderately ranked law school can have a meaningful and productive career.
If my advice means anything, even though you may not have gone to a fancy law school
with top grades or gotten a job at a silk-stocking law firm you can have a fulfilling
career that you can be proud of. You should not be afraid to take on pro-bono cases
or unpopular and controversial causes.