John Temple The Last Lawyer, The Fight to Save Death Row Inmates (2009)

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.They took Interstate 40, which in the summer was full of families drivingto the Carolina beaches from the Raleigh suburbs.But it was winter, and arare snow had briefly powdered the fields earlier in the morning, thoughthe dusting was already gone and the air was warming.The skies cleared asthey drove southeast.Ken told Sara that most trial attorneys were understandably defen-sive when appeals lawyers started poking around, looking for weaknessesin their defense of a client.Some almost seemed to switch sides, signingprosecution-friendly affidavits and turning over their files before the post-conviction attorneys had a chance to look at them.Other attorneys wantedto do everything they could to help their former clients avoid execution,even if they were portrayed as bad lawyers in the appeals.The key to sensitive interviews, Ken had found, was to ask the ques-tions in a direct, nonjudgmental manner.Just ask what the lawyer did andThe Last Lawyer 37didn t do, he told Sara.Everyone knew that judgments would be made later,but keeping confrontational interviews from disintegrating was an artone that Ken had not mastered even after seventeen years on the job.Sara had heard that Ken could be hard on people who hadn t done thework the way he thought it ought to be done, and even though they d gottenalong well so far, she could see that capacity for sternness in him.He couldbe intimidating.Only the old hands at the CDPL were brave enough to tellKen when he was giving them his implacable squint. You re giving me the West Point look again, they d say, and Ken s easysmile would return.People at the CDPL chuckled when they thought of Ken at West Point.The crisp uniforms, the chain of command, the adherence to traditionnone of it seemed to fit Ken s approach to life.Ken had enrolled at the mili-tary academy after high school in New Orleans.It was the mid-1970s, anda career in the military was not a popular choice.Something about thathad appealed to Ken something about going against the grain, fightingthe tide.From the first day at the academy, however, Ken realized he was a badfit.He couldn t do anything right, couldn t polish his boots to the propergleam or make his appointments on time.He spent many hours on pun-ishment, marching back and forth in the square.He stuck it out for twoyears, not willing to forgo the challenge, but then quit just before he wouldhave had to make a five-year commitment to the Army.Sara couldn t imagine her boss in the military.This was the secondlong car trip she had taken with him, after their trip six months earlier totalk to Ricky Lee Sanderson s brother.Since Ricky s death, Sara had let herclose-cropped brown hair grow out.She had no time to go to a stylist, ormaybe she had just lost interest in keeping up appearances.Instead, she dspent many hours chronicling her experience with Ricky, writing about thecase, their conversations, his theology, the night of his death.After Ricky sexecution, Ken had asked Sara what she needed, and she said she wantedtime to write about Ricky.Ken gave Sara a few days off, and she d filled fortypages on her computer with single-spaced recollections about Ricky andhis death.Others in the CDPL office had told Sara that if she d had more timewith Ricky, she would have talked him into appealing his case and extend-ing his life.Sara wasn t so sure.She asked Ken about it on the drive.Ricky was clinically depressed, Ken told her as they rode along.That swhy he didn t allow you to help him.38 The Last LawyerThat was undoubtedly true, Sara agreed, but not entirely satisfactoryas an explanation.Certainly Ricky was depressed.He d destroyed an inno-cent life.He d broken a family, and he could never fix that.The psychologi-cal term for his mental state was depression.But Sara thought Ricky hadneeded to perform an act of mercy, and that s what he thought he was doingwhen he volunteered for execution, when he gave up his appeals.As hardas she d tried to make him change his mind, she understood why he d doneit.She d never tell an inmate that, of course, for fear of triggering more vol-unteer executions.But she understood that Ricky had performed an act ofmercy that night.Sara didn t know much about Ken s religious background, other thanthat he was Jewish and that he d once sued to force the state of Mississippito stop displaying a cross on one of its office buildings.Workers had beeninstructed to leave lights on in certain offices so the lit windows formed across.The case attracted national headlines when a federal judge ruled thatthe cross was unconstitutional.Protestors held rallies, and ACLU leadersgot death threats.A private downtown Jackson building began lighting itswindows in a cross.It was one of the very few non-capital cases Ken everlitigated, but it seemed perfectly in character.Sara asked Ken about his spiritual beliefs.Well, Ken said, I m not really sure what they are.I m an agnostic.His next comment took her by surprise.He asked: How can you believe in a God who would allow his son to beexecuted?God did not make Jesus do that, Sara said.Jesus chose to do it.Heallowed himself to be used in that way.But Sara was troubled by Ken s question, and by her own response.Itwas a good question.And her answer seemed woefully inadequate, defen-sive.If she was going to work on behalf of condemned murderers, this wasa question that she d better have an answer for.She resolved to find a better answer to Ken s question.�% �% �%Ken figured that Graham Phillips wouldn t cooperate.The lawyer hadn treturned their phone calls.They d had to call several times before reachinghim to set up this meeting.Graham Phillips operated out of a street-front office in Wallace, a smalltown on the southern edge of Duplin County.The narrow one-story brickThe Last Lawyer 39building was wedged between a Chevy dealership and a McDonald s on thefour-block downtown stretch of Main Street.Sara and Ken sat in the wait-ing room.When Graham Phillips came out, Sara was struck by his sizewell over six feet.He greeted them, his deep, cigar-thickened voice boom-ing through the small waiting room, and ushered them to an unadornedmeeting room stacked with storage boxes.During the interview, Graham Phillips was not friendly but not defen-sive either.He was polite, Sara thought.A gregarious small-town lawyerin his sixties who felt he d done what he could for a troublesome client.Alawyer with strong ties to the Duplin County establishment he told Kenand Sara that he golfed with the judge currently assigned to Bo s case, JudgeLanier.Bo Jones was a most frustrating client, Graham Phillips told Ken andSara.Stubborn.Aggravating.All he did was claim he was innocent.Hewouldn t even consider taking a plea, even though one codefendant hadbeen found guilty already.Ken had brought along time sheets that Phillips had filed with thecourt.The time sheets showed the hours Phillips had billed the court forthe case, itemized by date [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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