Alvin Maleth

And while I could hear gratitude in his voice for the outcome, I could also hear some real anger about how close it all came to going the other way.

Greg, it's probably clear, does not think the system worked.

Or rather, he doesn't think the capital-S system works.

And he hates that perhaps all the time and the skill and dedication that he's given to David Wood's case might be used as an example of a system operating as it should.

The idea that all the lawyers in this case are zealously representing their sides and that the judges are giving deliberate consideration to all the arguments, calling balls and strikes.

That this process, though imperfect, is nevertheless the best that humans can do.

Greg sees it all as much more precarious than that.

Jeremy, as usual, puts it more bluntly.

Back in 1972, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, halting executions across the country.

Some of the justices wrote about racism, but actually their biggest focus was arbitrariness.

That a bunch of people committed horrible crimes every year and who actually got the death penalty was incredibly random.

So the death penalty disappeared for a few years.

And then politicians wrote new laws to try to make it less random.

And the Supreme Court allowed executions to start up again.

We're about to hit the 50-year anniversary of a supposedly new and improved death penalty, a half-century with almost 1,700 executions.

Watching David Wood's defense lawyers over the last 12 weeks, I feel confident in saying it's still arbitrary.

Not just in who gets put to death, but in who gets a stay.

For instance, it was arbitrary that David Wood got a lawyer as devoted as Greg, and that he could enlist a team as devoted as Jeremy's.

It was arbitrary that George Hall was still alive and off parole and willing to tell his story about the jailhouse informants.

That Ramona Dismukes just happened to be back in El Paso and willing to tell her story at a Whataburger.