Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys

10. Staying In

Chapter 10 Staying In “There’s this sense of urgency, this very deep kind of human response,” Lou explains as he describes what it feels like to have a client under death warrant. He is one of the attorneys who likens it to the experience of seeing someone tied to the tracks as a train approaches, adding, “Your human reaction is to try to save them.” It’s an instinctive response, Lou says. If you’re there, and you see it happening, and perhaps moreover if you have been specifically trained in how to respond to such things, you let the urgency propel you toward the scene, and you try to do what you can. “But then,” Lou continues, “If the train gets too close, you have to get out of the way.” Yes, I think to myself. This is what you come to if you extend the vivid image of the onrushing train and the desperate effort to get the individual out of harm’s way. This is the next frame of the scene. “It’s kind of like your emotional survival,” Lou says. “When you know it’s going to happen, when it’s inevitable, you dive for cover, because you have to survive to go on to the next one.” Later I found myself thinking about the judgment required for the selfpreservation Lou describes. Trying feverishly to untie the knots, the rescuer has to determine just when the moment of impossibility has arrived 194 Fighting for Their Lives and then have the physical and emotional reflexes to dive for cover. Of course, in actual experience judgments about self-preservation happen not in a split second but over time. But the parallel still seems apt. Given how dedicated they are to the rescue effort and how urgently they feel its pull, where do these capital defenders find shelter when their own survival is at stake? Or—to phrase it less in terms of split-second immediacy and more in terms of their long-term endurance—how do they keep preserving themselves so that they are able to survive and carry on over the course of their lives and careers? Lou frames the issue in terms of being able to “go on to the next one” and continue trying to save people. When he tells me about choosing not to witness clients’ executions, he says speculatively, “Maybe that’s like turning away when the train comes.” Preserving oneself, in this sense, means preserving one’s ability to keep engaging in the work. Several of the attorneys talk about focusing their energy on the next task, the next client who needs their attention. I can see this as a healthy response: turn from the dead to continue to fight for the living. Yet as Julian suggests in Chapter 9 when he talks about pouring himself immediately into the next urgent task, it can also be an unsustainable re-channeling of energy that doesn’t leave enough time for grief or recovery. If attorneys’ emphasis is on persevering , are they protecting their ability to get up the next day and fight for somebody else, or are they ignoring their own needs by forging ahead without respite or acknowledgment? Where is the line between a sustaining and a destructive kind of perseverance? It’s not an easy question, and it gets even harder when the prospect of “the next one” feels not only inspiring but also traumatizing. The urgency of the next client’s need can galvanize attorneys’ energy and propel them into work on days when they might otherwise be mired in exhaustion and grief—or the encounter with that next client can trigger paralyzing memories of those who are gone. It’s hard to predict which reaction will be paramount. Lou talks about diving for cover so that he will be around to struggle on behalf of the next person on the tracks; he also talks about turning Staying In 195 away to protect himself from the sight of the oncoming train. At this level, the distinction between fighting for others and fighting for oneself can blur. Over and over the attorneys say, “It’s not about me,” continually mindful that they are neither the center of the story nor the ones in most obvious peril. Yet I think Lou gets at something crucial when he observes that if he didn’t dive for cover, he wouldn’t...