When Cornell Law School’s First Amendment Clinic was asked to bring a lawsuit challenging a secrecy statute that conceals information about executions in South Carolina, Lindsey Ruff ’19 proposed a novel approach to fight the law.

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Ruff, then a third-year student, conceived of the legal theory that South Carolina’s secrecy law violates attorneys’ First Amendment right to learn information about their clients’ impending executions, which would enable them to assess the constitutionality of the state’s execution methods. Without that information, according to Ruff, attorneys could not effectively counsel their clients or communicate with the courts.

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