Description: the stories of one southern, class-straddling lawyer and her death row clients
Eight years ago, I posted about my introduction, early in my legal career, to the case of Michael Pinch. The trial transcript and the court opinions painted a picture of Michael as a cold-blooded killer. I didn’t tell the rest of the story, hoping one day to get back there but never doing so.
It turned out that Michael was the most “normal” man on death row that I would ever meet. He was well-spoken, handsome, polite, humble, and remorseful.
As my co-counsel and I investigated Michael’s case, we discovered that Michael was universally liked. Eventually, we uncovered evidence withheld by the prosecutor at trial to show that Michael could not have premeditated the shootings and showed extreme upset after them.