Recently, I received a very nice letter from a student in Great Britain who was studying capital punishment – specifically, the American Death Penalty.  She asked my take on things, generally speaking, and I was honored by the query and proud to be able to reply.  Having taken some of the language of my response from this blog, I thought it only fitting to share with its readers what I sent to Pavan last week.

Dear Pavan,

Thank you so much for writing me and asking my thoughts on the death penalty, as an American death penalty criminal defense attorney. I’m honored to be asked, and I hope that the following is helpful to you:

I’ve been practicing criminal law for a long time, and still I get asked on a weekly basis, why DO I defend what some call "the worst of the worst"? Just why is it that I defend those people that have been described on more than one occasion (and by more than one prosecutor) as the worst of the worst?

First, a word about what I do. I’m a private practice criminal defense attorney who focuses upon death penalty cases. In Florida, where I live and do most of my work, death penalty cases have two lawyers, known as first chair and second chair.

As first chair in a death penalty case, my job is concerned with the guilt finding of the defendant – the focus is judgment. As second chair, my job is to convince the jury to spare the life of the person if they are convicted – the focus is mercy. Here, arguing for mercy is legally known as "mitigation," a specialized area. Within that area, I have further specialized in mental health aspects of mitigation.

I represent young and old, the unknown and the infamous. Most recently, I was given extensive media coverage as the initial death-penalty qualified attorney in the Casey Anthony case. (I withdrew from the representation a long while back.)

"How can you represent those people?"

There are all the usual stock answers. "I am defending the Constitution." "The death penalty is not a cost effective solution." "There is no deterrent value." "As for retribution, is a life in a cage worse than death?" "The system is not perfect, and innocent people have been sentenced to death." "Death row is overwhelmingly populated by the poor and disadvantaged."

And all of these answers are true, but they don’t tell you the whole story.

Fundamentally, I do this because I want to understand. Why did this happen? How did this person arrive at my figurative doorstep, accused of a horrendous crime? What are the factors, the background, the events that led this person here?

Every person has a story. There is always some underlying common humanity in even those convicted of the most brutal crimes. It is my job to bring these mitigating factors to the jury, to shed light on the darkest heart and most disturbed mind.

To help us all to understand WHY. Continue Reading Dear Pavan — My Letter to a British Student about the American Death Penalty