Thwarting Death : A Legal Culture of Resistance Among Colorado Death Penalty Defense Lawyers

This book examines the lived experienes of death penalty defense lawyers and how they created a legal culture of resistance to the death penalty. It argues that an important social component of death penalty abolition in the state of Colorado was due to the efforts of capital defense attorneys. Specifically, it explores how the death penalty defense lawyers created and embraced a legal culture of resistance which compelled the attorneys to fight tenaciously in order to win life sentences for clients that had committed brutal homicides. A legal culture of resistance does not exist in a vacuum. Thwarting Death traces the lived experience of 15 death penalty defense lawyers from when they were kids all the way up through retirement to explain how a legal culture of resistance forms and lawyers operate within it after being established which in turn can have a massive influence on public policy outside of a courtroom; such as creating a social and political environmentconducive to abolishing the death penalty. Acknowledgments Contents About the Author 1 Introduction A Legal Culture of Resistance Why Study Death Penalty Defense Lawyer Culture? Why Study Colorado Death Penalty Defense Lawyers? Participants, Methods and Layout of This Book 2 Seeds of Resistance: Skepticism and Questioning of the Government Pre-College Years The College Years Outliers Conclusion 3 The Socializing Experiences of Law School & Internships Internships for the Criminal Defense Minded Internships for Those Finding Their Way Interning with the Prosecutors Then the Defense Conclusion 4 Empathy & Moral Anger: The Emotional Components of a Legal Culture of Resistance Empathy in Death Penalty Defense Work Empathy and the Client Empathy, Victim’s Families and Society Moral Anger Towards the Death Penalty Conclusion 5 Active Resistance—Creating Ideological Boundaries and the Fight Within Judges Prosecutors Adequacy of Resources Aggressive Litigation Strategies: An Overview Mitigation Litigation Conclusion 6 Sacrifice Within a Culture of Resistance Conclusion 7 Conclusion Epilog