Randy Singer - By reason of insanity

Quinn paused. He thought about the dozen or so cases he had accepted since his sister's trial. Mental incapacity was not a choice these people made. He couldn't help but get a little passionate defending them. "Is this really the kind of person we want to put to death?"

Quinn could read body language with the best of them, and most of the audience was saying heck yes.

"Mr. Boland worries that allowing mentally impaired defendants to escape the needle might gut the death penalty," Quinn continued, more animated now. "Good. A study published in the Stanford Law Review documents more than 350 capital convictions in this century in which it was later proven, by DNA evidence or otherwise, that the convict did not commit the crime. In Georgia, a study showed that when African-Americans killed whites, they were four times more likely to be sentenced to death than were convicted killers of nonwhites."

Quinn gave them a chance to digest this information and took a deep breath. The more skeptical the audience, the more Quinn would usually pour on the passion. Weak point, talk louder. He was already out on the limb. Might as well saw away. "Capital punishment is a barbaric remnant of an uncivilized society. Why do you think they use a three-drug cocktail for lethal injection? The sodium thiopental, administered first, is an anesthetic. Then they give the condemned person pancuronium bromide, a paralyzing agent, to put them in a chemical straitjacket. That way they can't squirm around and cry out in pain as the heart is squeezed to a stop from the injection of the potassium chloride. How could any court, much less the Supreme Court, say this is not cruel and unusual punishment?

"As for me, I share the sentiments of former Supreme Court justice Harry Blackmun, a man who grew weary quibbling about the proper guidelines for the death penalty. In a 1994 case, he concluded that the death penalty experiment had failed and stated that he would no longer tinker with the machinery of death. In my view, the death penalty is immoral, unfair, and discriminatory. It ought to be abolished in total or at least prohibited when it comes to the mentally impaired."

A few people clapped and a handful of others joined them in order to be polite. But the real indication of how well his talk was received could be measured by the numerous hands shooting up to ask Quinn a question. Judging by the disapproving looks on their faces, it was going to be a long night.

Halfway through the question-and-answer session, Catherine's reporter instincts kicked in. During the first half of the debate, she had been consumed with tomorrow's hearing. Plus, she was only mildly interested in the subject matter-capital punishment had been written to death, so to speak, especially since the Supreme Court had weighed in on the constitutionality of lethal injection. But these two lawyers gave it new life. Quinn, a passionate advocate for the mentally ill, and Bo, the defense attorney with a unique sense of frontier justice. Catherine pulled out her laptop and started typing a few notes.

She stopped midsentence when Quinn responded to a question by describing an execution he had witnessed. And then others he had not. Jesse Tafero in Florida, who, according to eyewitnesses, remained alive for four minutes after the juice was turned on in the electric chair, smoke rising from his bobbing head while ashes fell out from under the iron cap. Or a man in Texas, whose name Catherine didn't catch, who stayed alive for twenty-four minutes after a supposedly lethal dosage of chemicals was injected into his arm. The problem, according to Quinn, was that the tube attached to the needle had leaked, spraying noxious chemicals toward the witnesses.

Quinn explained that doctors couldn't participate in the procedures because helping to kill somebody violated their Hippocratic oath. And the prison officials weren't exactly experts at it. "No sensible person who has actually witnessed an execution can still support the death penalty," Quinn stated.

Marc Boland, seated at the other end of the table, pulled his mike closer. "Not exactly true," he said. "I've witnessed three. One as a prosecutor and two as a defense attorney. In each case, I came to the same conclusion: the murderer died more humanely than his victims did."

And so it went, back and forth, until Catherine had almost forgotten about her appointment with an irate judge the next day. Almost. She checked her watch. It was nearly 9 p.m. That sinking feeling returned to the pit of her stomach.

The moderator called on a student in the second row, and the young man rose to address the attorneys. Interesting, thought Catherine. Other audience members had asked their questions sitting down.

"How can you lecture us about morality," the young man asked, "when you represent clients you know are guilty?"

Newberg gave the man a condescending smile, as if he'd heard the question a million times and expected better from a law school student. "You may like to judge people before they're tried by a jury," Quinn said, "but others of us like to follow the law and presume they're innocent. It's not my job to be judge and jury. My job is to stand up for people who can't stand up for themselves, and I'm not ashamed of it."

This brought a smattering of applause as the student took his seat. But the Reverend Pryor apparently had a different take. "You're a hypocrite!" Pryor bellowed from the back wall. "You say everybody's entitled to a defense, but you pick and choose based on whether they can pay and what type of crime they commit. What if I took out a few baby-killin' abortion doctors-you gonna represent me?"

Quinn shook his head in disgust. "That's not even worthy of a response."

Cat turned in her seat and noticed a few men in suits and earpieces moving toward the reverend.

"What about you?" Pryor shouted toward Bo. " You gonna take my case?"

A security guard grabbed an elbow, and Pryor tried to shake him off.

"I'd refer you to Quinn," Bo shot back. "He's the insanity specialist."

The audience laughed nervously while the men escorted Pryor toward the door.

"Woe unto you, lawyers and hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which are full of dead men's bones on the inside and everything unclean. When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

Though the security guards couldn't silence Pryor, they did unceremoniously drag him out the door. Catherine could hear his muffled shouts in the hallway.

There was a moment of stunned silence before the moderator spoke up. He turned first to Marc Boland. "It's a little off the subject," the moderator said, "but maybe we should answer the reverend's question. Would you take his case?"

"As a practical matter, probably not. There are some types of cases I don't generally handle, like, for example, sex crimes. The killing of abortion doctors would probably be among them." Bo paused, continuing in a more solemn tone. "But under our system, Reverend Pryor is entitled to a defense. And, if nobody else would do it, or if the court appointed me, I would take the case. I wouldn't like it, but, for the sake of the rule of law, I'd give him the best defense I could provide."

Bo's remarks brought spontaneous applause from the appreciative audience. When the clapping died down, he turned to Quinn Newberg. "We've disagreed on a lot of things tonight, but I suspect you would concur on that point."

"Actually," Quinn said, "I wouldn't. Pryor might be entitled to a defense. But he's not entitled to a defense from me. "

Quinn's bluntness caused a momentary silence as the moderator searched for an appropriate follow-up. Quinn beat him to it. "Not unless he could pay my retainer," he said.

The moderator smiled nervously, apparently unsure whether Quinn was joking.