SEATTLE (November, 14, 2009) – At the annual Bill of Rights dinner, the ACLU of Washington honored Schroeter, Goldmark & Bender attorneys Jeffery Robinson and Amanda Lee for their work representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as part of the John Adams Project. The award was given “for personal and professional sacrifice and heroic advocacy on behalf of American principles of fairness for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.”

Amanda Lee and Jeffery Robinson have shown exceptional courage and dedication to principle in seeking to provide fairness for detainees who face the death penalty at Guantanamo Bay. They have worked heroically to uphold fundamental American values amid the government’s “war on terror.”Robinson and Lee are participating in the John Adams Project, a joint effort of the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to involve some of the country’s leading criminal defense attorneys in representing Guantanamo detainees. Recognizing the grave flaws of the military commission system at Guantanamo, the project’s attorneys strive to provide a defense that reflects our commitment to due process.The honorees have endured many challenges and taken many risks to see that the accused have effective representation. Sacrificing personal and professional interests, they have traveled repeatedly under intense security conditions to the U.S. military base in Cuba. Robinson and Lee have worked in extraordinary physical conditions while coping with newly devised and secret legal proceedings designed to undermine any reliable testing of the government’s case.