[Marxism] American Justice, Texas Justice; and Guantanamo Justice?

[Brian Shannon <Brian_Shannon@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

"The two men embraced for the first time, but Blank would admit to no
tears."
[Not my feelings on reading this, which shows two things: one that I'm
an old man and old men tear easily, and two that it's just as well I
never became a lawyer for which I trained over two years.]
_______________

THE ACCIDENTAL DEFENDERS
For 17 years Ernest Ray Willis sat on death row in Texas for a crime he
didn't commit
Douglas McCollum
The American Lawyer
01-18-2005

In the fall of 1992, James Blank, a 26-year-old first-year associate at
New York's Mudge Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon, got a call from
partner Thomas Evans asking him to come by and talk about a new client
the firm had agreed to represent. Blank had done some work for Evans
after joining Mudge's intellectual property litigation team following
his graduation from the New York University School of Law.

But Evans didn't want to talk to Blank about Nintendo Co., Ltd., or any
of the firm's other big IP clients. Rather, the new case was
representing Ernest Ray Willis, a man convicted of capital murder for
setting a house fire in tiny Iraan, Texas, that killed two women. Blank
was a little surprised. Though he'd always assumed he'd do pro bono
work for the firm, he wasn't especially interested in the death
penalty, hadn't done any clinic work on criminal cases while at NYU,
and knew nothing about Texas justice. Nonetheless, Blank soon found
himself seated in a room reading through 30 volumes of Willis' trial
transcripts.

So began an extraordinary legal journey that would consume Blank for
much of the next 12 years. During that time Mudge Rose blew up, and
Blank -- along with other firm lawyers -- joined the New York office of
Latham & Watkins. Blank's new firm would pour millions of dollars and
thousands of hours of lawyer and staff time into representing Willis.
Despite that, everyone working on the case knew, the odds were long.
Since the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in
1976, fewer than a dozen inmates have been freed from Texas' swollen
death row.

Moreover, the Lone Star State's legal environment was increasingly
hostile. By the late 1990s Texas's Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA), the
state's highest criminal court, was composed of nine elected
Republicans, most of whom were former prosecutors who ran on strong
law-and-order platforms. A study by Texas Monthly magazine found that
between 1994 and 2002, the CCA reversed only 3 percent of death penalty
convictions, the lowest percentage of any court of last resort in the
nation.
. . .
Throughout, Willis' defense lawyer rarely objected, nor did Willis
himself seem much bothered by the portrait the prosecutor sketched of
him. In fact, trial jurors saw a blank man with impassive eyes unmoved
by the abuses hurled at him or by the gruesome pictures of the victims.
At one point Willis' lawyer handed him a legal pad and pen and implored
him to doodle -- to do something, anything -- other than stare into
space. But Willis hardly seemed to care what was happening, a fact the
prosecutor used against him with gusto, referring several times to his
"cold eyes" that showed no remorse. "Ladies and gentlemen, this is an
animal sitting right down here at the end of the table," Johnson said
in his closing, "just like one of them pit bull dogs ... You don't need
to know the motive. Actions speak loud enough. This is an animal."
. . .
But when the defense reviewed his medical records, they saw Willis was
given two medications unrelated to his back condition, Haloperidol and
Perphenazine. Both, it turns out, are powerful antipsychotic drugs.
Experts for the defense told the Latham team that an acutely psychotic
person, one who was "howling at the moon," might be given 15 milligrams
of Haloperidol per day. Willis had been given 40 milligrams per day.
The effect on a nonpsychotic person, especially when combined with
Perphenazine, was severe. Suddenly, Willis' strange demeanor at trial
made a lot more sense. In addition, the record showed the state had
discontinued the medication shortly after the trial ended. And on the
form used to admit Willis into the death row facility in Huntsville,
the state checked a box saying he had no known history of mental
illness. Why, the team wondered, would the state of Texas give powerful
antipsychotic drugs to a sane man? The lawyers couldn't get an
explanation out of the D.A.'s office, prison officials, or anyone else
they asked (and still haven't to this day).
. . .
Citing the state's use of inappropriate antipsychotic drugs on Willis,
and the suppression of Jarvis Wright's psychological report, among
other factors, Furgeson found that both Willis' "conviction and
sentence were obtained in violation of the U. S. Constitution."
Furgeson says the extensive findings by Jones made his decision a lot
easier. "He's a great judge," Furgeson noted. He also praised the
Latham team: "Winning federal death habeas is very long odds. Their
work was of the highest order, the kind of effort that does the
profession proud.
. . .
On October 5, 2004, Judge Jones, who 17 years before had sentenced
Ernest Willis to die, signed the order granting his release. A day
later, Willis was processed out of death row, a result so rare that
prison officials were confused about how to do it. Waiting for Willis
was his wife of four years, Verilyn Harbin, the sister of another death
row inmate. It was the first time they had ever touched.

Blank and the rest of the Latham team flew down to Houston the next
day, where Latham put Willis and his wife up in a luxury bridal suite,
complete with Champagne and chocolate-covered strawberries. The two men
embraced for the first time, but Blank would admit to no tears. On his
feelings about his 12-year legal odyssey, the IP lawyer says he mainly
is relieved that they won. "We've come so far together," Blank adds. "I
grew up as a lawyer with Ernest, but it's time for him to move on and
for me to move on professionally."

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