Two weeks ago I stood next to a man who was
sentenced to death.
Never did that before. Never want to do that again.
The circumstances of how that occurred are somewhat unique.
During the past two weeks friends in the courthouse who saw
the picture of me next to the defendant and story in the Herald have been coming up to me offering words of
condolences.
Nobody really understands the circumstances of how I found
myself in court next to a defendant I had met only a few days before, acting as
co-counsel as the court sentenced him to death
The defendant was represented through trial, where he was
found guilty, and through the penalty phase where the jury recommended death,
by the Dade County Public Defender’s Office. After the penalty phase was
concluded, a conflict developed and the Public Defenders had to withdraw. And
when I use the term conflict, I am using it in the legal sense, not that the
defendant was angry at his lawyers. He was not.
So the court appointed my trial partner Kellie Peterson and
myself to essentially stand next to the defendant while the court handed down
the sentence.If you know Kellie and if you know me, you know we were not
going to just stand idly by. We filed what motions we could to stop the
process, primarily relying on the fact that the United States Supreme Court is
going to decide next October if Florida’s death penalty sentencing scheme,
which allows for a non-unanimous jury to make a recommendation of death, is
constitutional ( it is not constitutional- a subject for another blog post, and if Justice Scalia happens to read this, I
will get that one up soon. Promise.)
So there Kellie and I stood as the trial judge went through
the litany of very difficult facts of the murder in this case. But I wasn’t standing right next to the
defendant. Edith Georgi, who was the defendant’s lawyer through the trial and
for the last several years stood next to her former client. She couldn’t
technically represent him anymore, but she was there.
For those of you who don’t know Edith Georgi, let me make it
simple- she is as fine a death penalty defender as there is in the United
States. Period. She kicked my ass in a murder case when I was a prosecutor many
years ago (I often wonder if she remembers that. I do. )
As the judge went through the specific acts, she included in her sentencing order a fairly stirring and stinging denouncement of the defendant's acts, Edith was there rubbing her former client’s back, whispering in his ear
to be strong, and being as compassionate as a person-lawyer can be.
I can’t get this scene out of my mind. The judge intoning
the very horrible acts the defendant was convicted of committing, and Edith
touching him and telling him to be strong and that it was going to be okay.
When the judge, in a biting comment, mentioned that the
defendant had been a very religious person, leading bible classes in jail, and
then said “but you forgot the commandant ‘Thou Shall Not Kill’ ”, I could feel
the judge’s eyes burning into my client. I leaned over to Edith and whispered
“She’s wrong. The sixth commandment says ‘Thou shall not commit murder’. The
bible is full of instructions to kill.” I briefly considered objecting, before
deciding that in this instance discretion was the better part of valor
considering that the defendant had in fact been convicted of murder. The
death-sentence train was roaring down the track we were tied to. I could see
it’s malevolent lights in the distance, growing stronger with each sentence of
the judge’s order.
It’s easy to be compassionate to the most vulnerable amongst
us- the homeless family, the sick child, an accident victim. But how much harder is it to show human
compassion towards someone who by all rights doesn’t deserve it?
But what Edith and Kellie and I know from a lifetime spent
in these types of cases is that beneath the tattooed, hulking, frightening exterior
of this convicted killer is a human being, who was once an innocent child, and
who somewhere, in someway, went terribly wrong.
As Jesus said: “love the sinner, not the sin.”
Bless you Edith for those simple acts of compassion. I know
they meant a lot to your client.
There is nothing heroic in defending the un-defendable. I
reject that notion that some of my fellow criminal defense attorneys often wrap
themselves in as they commiserate their losses. Quite frankly, it stinks. It’s
awful. It wakes me up in the middle of the night and I stare at the ceiling in
the darkness thinking sometimes of my client’s victims. Other times I wonder
where my client went wrong- what moment in their life turned them from a normal
human being who values life, into someone who committed a horrible crime? And then invariably the questions about
myself. Why am I representing them? Why don’t I just devote my trial skills to
suing insurance companies? I could make a lot more money.
Each of us in this field has our own reasons for why we do
what we do. I won’t speak for my colleagues. But in that windowless courtroom a
few weeks ago, when I saw true humanity- a simple act of kindness by Edith
Georgi, a remarkable lawyer and human being, I knew, despite all the pain, the
impossible cases, the continuing stream of motions filed and denied, that I am doing what I am best able to do. I
am using whatever talents the good lord gave me, in the best way possible. And
for now, (until my books get published ) that will have to be enough.
