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| David R. Dow |
Meet David R. Dow. I've written about him a handful of times on this very site, usually in a space describing laudable educators or men who have motivated me to get off the couch and make something of my life.
He's a well-respected Texas death penalty lawyer, featured in a TedX speech that you can see here. He's the author of a handful of books, including a life-changing memoir called The Things I've Learned From Dying. He's written from the heart on the death penalty for a very long time, in book and brief form, challenging the Texas death machine along the way.
As the representative of more than 100 Texas death row inmates, Dow's learned to celebrate the little successes. On a few occasions, he's saved the life of his clients. In his litany of positive outcomes was the Anthony Graves case. Dow was a part of the team that secured an exoneration for Graves, who in 2010 was set free from Texas's death row after spending 16 years awaiting his death. He's extended the lives of countless other clients, giving those people an opportunity so spend valuable time with family.
Dow would probably shrug aside this heroic characterization. He'd probably tell you that he's trying to martial his considerable ability in a cause that he's found worthy. And he'd be right. My experience with him has shown a ruthless dedication to the logic and logistics of death penalty practice. It's a constant effort to navigate the procedural hurdles and minefields that are specifically designed to make the job really hard for the last guy to sign on when a client's life's being threatened. And it's in one of those hurdles that we have our current story. Dow's been suspended for a year by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
As Maurice Chammah of the Marshall Project described the situation:
On Wednesday, the judges of Texas’ highest criminal court told a defense attorney named David Dow he would not be able to practice in front of them for the next year. The Court of Criminal Appeals decided that Dow had filed a motion to stop the execution of his client, Miguel Angel Paredes, too late, and that since he’d done the same thing in a different case in 2010, he will now be suspended.
For the uninitiated, that might sound strange. And it should. Death penalty cases necessarily bring into play tight deadlines. Lawyers like Dow are often working against the clock, sorting through the myriad issues at their disposal, looking for that special chestnut that might just save a man's life. They're deciding which argument is their best, and they're often waiting for information that just doesn't come. These situations are fluid, too, dependent upon the whims of forensic testing, jailhouse snitch testimony rescission, and other such evidentiary components.
Judges often accuse death penalty lawyers of filing late and frivolous appeals in an effort to delay the process. Ignoring the absurd characterization of any appeal that seeks to save a man's life as being "frivolous," in some circles, one might see a death penalty litigator's attempt to extend a man's life as noble. Like the doctor finding a few more months for his sick patient, the death penalty lawyer's "win" is often that extension, especially in places like Texas, where real death penalty wins are rare.
Dow's first notable clash with the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on the issue of deadlines came back in 2007. Dow and his team worked feverishly to finish an appeal on behalf of Michael Richard. As they closed out their work, they experienced a computer crash, and asked the court to stay open for 20 extra minutes after their five o'clock closing so that the team could send a representative to personally deliver the appeal. The appeal, we'll remind you, was about the outcome of a human being's life.
Judge Sharon Keller, whose career casts a long shadow of enormity, responded simply: We close at five.
Source: Daily Kos, March 9, 2015
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