Tuesday, January 18, 2005
death penalty
You should really read this article, from the American Lawyer, about the long process by which some big-firm lawyers, working pro bono, got a wrongly-convicted man off death row in Texas. "Wrongly-convicted" really is the right word; after a federal district court granted a writ of habeas corpus, the Texas A.G. decided not even to appeal, having been convinced that the evidence was insufficient to allow a proper conviction. But read the article and realize that it took a truly vast number of lawyer hours, as well as law firm out-of-pocket $, to achieve this result. Any system that depends on such fortuities to free a wrongly-convicted death row inmate is seriously messed up.
posted by sam 7:14 AM 
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(The Return of) Ignatz, by Sam Heldman