12 March 2003

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Texas is coming up on its 300th execution since reinstating the penalty. Same arguments as usual. The convicted's attorneys say he was unjustly convicted and his trial lawyer was incompetent. State attorneys say there is always some error but the evidence is cleary sufficient to prove convicted's guilt.

I don't practice capital defense but I have to sympathize with those who do. You bust your rear trying everything you've got to defend your client. On top of that you have the additional distraction of having to file and argue all sorts of low probability motions in order to preserve any possible reason for appeal. Often you are basically trying to keep an obviously guilty man from being killed by the government. And then, if your client is sentenced to death over the next 10-15 years everything you did is examined under an electron microscope and you are called incompetent over and over again.

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