We Interrupt This Nonsense ... Updated!

For a dose of reality. In a former life, I clerked for a judge on the highest criminal law court in the state. By default, I was assigned all the capital cases that came through our office and wrote the opinions that affirmed the convictions, and thereby the death sentences, in those cases. Fun. One case that I particularly struggled with has been in the news lately, and unless Governor Hairdo does something completely out of character, Kenneth's time is up tomorrow.

In law school, I worked on the final appeal and last-minute request for clemency in another capital case (which The Supremes and W denied, thankyouverymuch), and I visited my client on Death Row in Huntsville the week before he was executed. Charlie saw the writing on the wall, and he told me with a smile that he was looking forward to getting a good clean shave before his family saw him for the last time. It is still one of the most unnerving and incredibly valuable experiences I've ever had, and I'm so glad I had the chance to do it. Ditto my visit to the women's death row unit in Gatesville.

Flash forward to my time as a clerk, where my very conservative judge once again listened patiently to my impassioned pleas to reconsider the trial court's decision and then said, "Thanks for the great work, but no." See, here in Tejas, capital convictions are automatically appealed, BUT, basically, unless the applicable law has changed between trial and appeal (yeah, right), or you have some newly discovered and extremely compelling evidence (like DNA), or there was some really egregious misconduct from either counsel table, or some such other rare instance, you're pretty much SOL at the state level and have to hope for bigger and better things higher up the food chain.

Which is how I got through the tough opinions, hoping that someone wiser and more powerful (paging Madam Ginsberg and Co.) would see the light and put the brakes on this runaway train. So far, that hasn't happened, but this case would be a great one to effect change in the system, if only by exposing the Law of Parties as the bullshit legislative lipservice that it is.

Google Kenneth's name if you're interested because there's a lot of information flying around out there right now. In the meantime, I'm going to wash my hands.

Update: Miracle of miracles, Governor Hairdo actually came through. Amazing. So now Kenneth will spend the rest of his life in prison, and we'll only execute two people this week instead of three.