channels, they let their cronies know that. Later, they stand outside the governor’s mansion and shrug their shoulders and say that the inmate received a fair trial, that it was reviewed by the courts, that his appeal for clemency was turned down by the Board, and that there is nothing they can do. Then they head off to dinner at the Four Seasons and talk about bearing the weight of permitting someone to die.
Is there any phrase in the English lexicon more immoral than
But some people are changed by responsibility. Paul Brownwell, a cattle rancher in Giddings, was one of them. He called me at my office at seven o’clock on Monday night. He said, I wanted you to know before we tell the press that the Board just voted against recommending commutation in Mr. Quaker’s case. The vote was four to three. I’m just sick about it. It was the best clemency petition I’ve ever read. I’m sorry to be telling you this.
I thanked him for the call. I walked into the conference room where the others were eating a pizza and told them the news. We have among us fifty years of death-penalty experience, but everyone was stunned. In the extraordinary case—with an inmate who is mentally retarded, for example—we expect the Board to recommend relief. In the typical case, we expect the Board to deny relief, usually by a vote of seven to nothing. We had little experience with a vote of four to three. I had thought the clemency petition was a waste of time. It turns out that the real waste of time was not spending another hour on it to try to pick up one more vote. I’m not a cheerleader, but their faces were breaking my heart. I said, It’s not even close to over. We’ve got lots of arrows left in the quiver.
What I didn’t say was that I had a bad feeling we had already used the one with the sharpest point. I didn’t need to. They didn’t believe a word I was saying.
TUESDAY AFTERNOON Judge Truesdale called and asked whether we could meet for a drink at the Magnolia instead of coffee at Diedrich. She was sitting at a table in the back when I got there. The waiter came over and I asked him for club soda with lime. She said, I’ll have another. Bring him one, too.
When I’m in a bar or restaurant and I run into a judge presiding over one of my cases, I become a stick figure. I want to say what I think, but I feel like I can’t, and it is a short step from there to feeling like I am someone else, someone I recognize but do not really know, the way most people know their neighbors. I used to think it was because of ethical restrictions on what lawyers are supposed to say to judges about cases pending in their courtrooms, but that’s not really it. It is because they are not mortal. They hold the power to spare my client. For a short moment in a tiny space, they are God. I want to know what they are thinking, so that if they are thinking wrong, I can try to nudge them. If Moses can rebuke Yahweh, I can implore a judge. I want them to see the human reasons my client deserves to live, not the legal ones. I want them to be moral agents, not judges. But Moses turned away from the burning bush. I know exactly what I will say, and I also know I won’t.
When Katya was practicing law, she negotiated settlements with insurance companies. She would quibble over every last dime. When someone knocks on our door asking if we want him to power-wash the exterior of our house, she pays him whatever he asks. It is easier to negotiate on someone else’s behalf. But sometimes it can be hard to separate your own interests from your client’s.
I thought to myself, I will not be begging for my own life. I will be pleading for someone else who ought to live. No one has done that for him. Someone needs to. It is the very least he deserves.
Our drinks came. She raised her glass. I picked up my glass of soda to clink against hers. She nodded to the martini the waiter had also set in front of me and said, Use that one.
She said, What do you want to talk about? I told her I was uncomfortable discussing the case. I had no idea why I was there if I was not going to talk about the case, but there I was. I’d stew over that contradiction later. There were two olives in her drink. She used her thumb and index finger to lift one out. She ate it, then put both fingers in her mouth together to lick off the brine. Under the table her right leg was crossed over her left. She leaned forward. I felt her toes against my shin. She said, I walked here from my office. When I drink too much, I stay the night. I’ve already checked in. Bring your drink and come upstairs with me.
She was wearing a black silk blouse open at the neck and a string of pearls. She tucked a strand of loose hair behind her ear. I wondered whether I would tell Katya. It’s one thing to sleep with someone because you want to. It’s a different thing to sleep with someone because you want them to do something. I once told Katya that I couldn’t sleep with any of the famous people on my list because if I did I wouldn’t know myself anymore, and if I didn’t know myself, I’d have to kill myself. I can’t live with a stranger. She had said, No one knows himself as well as he thinks he does, including you. People surprise themselves all the time.
In college I memorized chunks of Saint Augustine’s Confessions.
She signaled the waiter and showed him her room key. She said, Put this on my bill. She stood up and drank down the rest of her martini. She leaned over and her lips were nearly touching my ear. I smelled the gin on her breath. I felt heat coming off her face. I felt her breasts pressing against my shoulder. She said, I think you’ll find it worthwhile. I felt a drop of sweat in my armpit. She whispered, Come on.
I saw Quaker in his cell, sitting on his metal cot, reading. Everything was dark, except for the book, illuminated by the 25-watt bulb of a small gooseneck lamp. I saw the crime scene photographs: Dorris, Daniel, and Charisse, their skin hued yellow, their blood almost black. I saw Lincoln sleeping. I heard Quaker say, In case you’re wondering, I didn’t kill my family.
I said, Judge, I can’t do this.
A VAN BACKED UP to a loading dock at the Polunsky Unit at two o’clock. Half an hour before, guards had led a shackled Quaker to the shower and given him fresh clothes. He felt nothing, neither courage nor fear, neither bitterness nor forgiveness, neither hatred nor love. He could not recall whether he had requested a final meal. He had written his mother a letter and had asked the warden to mail it once it was over. He told her about it when he talked to her on the phone that morning and told her good-bye. She would not be watching him die. He stood under the hottest water he could stand while three guards watched him, their hands resting on holstered cans of Mace they knew they would never need to use. He dressed and walked into the back of the Chevy van. One of the guards said, Inmate Quaker, I hope I see you tomorrow. Quaker nodded, his eyes soft. The other two guards got in the van. The one who had spoken wiped away a tear.
I TALKED TO HENRY just after he arrived at the Walls Unit at four and told him about the vote of the Board. I reminded him that we still had a petition pending in the Supreme Court, but that we all expected it to be denied. I told him that our indications were that Judge Truesdale was going to deny our request for a stay. I didn’t tell him why I was sure of that. He hadn’t said a word. I knew he was still on the line because I could hear electric doors clanging shut in the background. He said, You’ll be here watching tonight, right?
At five o’clock, Judge Truesdale called. She said, You’re not Joan of fucking Arc, you know. I was not sure how to respond to that. She said, I just signed an order withdrawing the date.
I said, Thank you, Judge. She hung up without another word.
The others were in Jerome’s office, discussing whether there was a way to create a legal claim out of the fact that Judge Truesdale had not issued a ruling. I told them she had called. I asked Kassie to call the district attorney’s office to confirm. She said, To confirm? You don’t believe her?
I said, Just call.
Ten minutes later they were standing in my office. Kassie had talked to Shirley in the DA’s office. Shirley believed that Judge Truesdale did not have any legal authority to withdraw the execution date. Under state law, unless a legal action challenging a death sentence is pending in state court, the trial judge cannot issue a stay of execution. The DA’s office interpreted
Here’s why I could never be a prosecutor: because I could never be
