Fighting for clients’ lives: the impact of the death penalty on defence lawyers

Texas Death Chamber

Overturning a death sentence is generally understood to be harder than preventing that sentence from being issued in the first place. For post-conviction lawyers, the looming threat of execution makes every client’s need for representation extremely urgent, and the enormity of that need in relation to the number of lawyers who are experienced and knowledgeable in this area can place great demand on any individual lawyer. A lawyer from the USA describes it this way: ‘I’m already juggling too many things, and yet there is so much need. There’s so many people saying “help, help, help” ... That is the thing I’m haunted by: the people I cannot help.’

Lawyers at this stage are also working under great time pressure, sometimes because of the limits the law has placed on when a petition can be filed and sometimes because prisoners are unaware of their right to seek relief at such a late stage and do not contact a lawyer until the execution is imminent. With more urgent work to do than can be easily done in the available time, lawyers can become overwhelmed by an acute stress that they describe as ‘paralyzing, feeling like you’re going to come out of your skin, feeling like you’re losing it, or screaming’.

Lawyers describe the responsibility of trying to prevent an execution as a tremendous weight that is with them constantly, making it difficult to do or think about anything else. The feeling is very personal: ‘His life is in your hands’, ‘You feel like you’re the only thing between your client and him getting executed’. Some lawyers compare it to seeing someone tied to the tracks as a train approaches; their job is to stop the train, or untie the knots, in time to prevent the fatal collision.

Knowing exactly when an execution is scheduled to occur creates one kind of burden. Being taken by surprise, as happens in countries where executions are not announced ahead of time, is devastating in another way.

Lawyers who do have an opportunity for a last visit or phone call with a client before the execution say that
those final conversations are extremely wrenching, as they are forced to explain to the client that there is nothing else that can be done. Having to explain this to the client’s family members and witness their anguish is also painful and difficult.

‘The hardest thing, the crux of it, is what happens in those half hours of the last visit. That’s the most emotional stuff for me, the most loaded, the stuff that puts me over the edge, the stuff that’s the hardest to talk about ... You’re trying to offer solace to somebody who’s about to die. It’s unbelievable.No one can be adequate in that situation. How could you possibly?’
Lawyer from the USA

‘[I was outside the prison with my client’s mother], who’s hunched over, and she is just – broken down. Sobbing, delirious, you know, she’s just said goodbye to her son for the last time. That was one of the hardest moments. And, you know, that’s the thing about the death penalty that people don’t see. It was just brutal. I remember that scene so vividly. What can you do? You can’t leave, and you can’t change anything. You can’t do anything for her.’
Lawyer from the USA

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Source: Penal Reform International, Susannah Sheffer, April 2014