Walter C. Long

Walter C. Long
Photograph by Sabina Hinz-Foley, February 2009
In front of the Texas After Violence Project office

Walter C. Long is an Austin native and an attorney who has represented Texas death row inmates in their post-conviction appeals in state and federal courts for many years. He is the founder of the Texas After Violence Project.

Mr. Long has sought to encourage respect for international human rights principles within United States constitutional law and practice. He received significant recognition for his work against the death penalty for child offenders in the United States from, inter alia, Amnesty International U.S.A., the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the National Juvenile Defender Center. Mr. Long has made presentations on the death penalty at such diverse places as the University of Texas School of Law, the annual conference of the Law and Society Association, and the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

Mr. Long also is very interested in restorative justice, conflict transformation, and the relationship between legal rights and psychological trauma. These are areas of continuous study and engagement for him.

Mr. Long has published articles on various topics: on the death penalty in the American Journal of Criminal Law and the Peace Review, on gender as a political asylum category in the U.C.L.A. Women's Law Journal, and on the Canterbury Tales in the Chaucer Review. Published court decisions (with co-counsel) include Williams v. Quarterman, 551 F.3d 352 (5th Cir. 2008), Ex parte Damon Richardson, 70 S.W.3d 865 (Tex. Crim. App. 2002), Napoleon Beazley v. Gary Johnson, 242 F.3d 248 (5th Cir. 2001), and Ex parte Karla Faye Tucker, 973 S.W.2d 950 (Tex. Crim. App. 1998).

Mr. Long is a triple graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, with a BA with Special Honors in History, an MA in English Literature, and a JD in Law. He also has an MA in Religion from Westminster Theological Seminary.