0:00:01.567,0:00:03.460
Two weeks ago,

0:00:03.460,0:00:05.567
I was sitting at the

0:00:05.567,0:00:08.567
kitchen table with my wife Katya,

0:00:08.567,0:00:13.433
and we were talking about what I was gonna talk about today.

0:00:13.433,0:00:18.460
We have an 11-year-old son; his name is Lincoln. He was sitting at the same table

0:00:18.460,0:00:21.153
doing his math homework.

0:00:21.153,0:00:22.570
And during a pause in my conversation

0:00:23.754,0:00:26.267
with Katya, I looked over at Lincoln

0:00:26.267,0:00:28.133
and I was suddenly thunderstruck

0:00:30.167,0:00:33.633
by a recollection of a client of mine.

0:00:33.633,0:00:36.525
My client was a guy named Will.

0:00:36.525,0:00:38.443
He was from North Texas.

0:00:38.443,0:00:43.539
He never knew his father very well, because his father left

0:00:43.539,0:00:47.233
his mom while she was pregnant with him.

0:00:47.233,0:00:51.600
And so, he was destined to be raised by a single mom,

0:00:51.600,0:00:53.167
which might have been all right

0:00:53.167,0:00:55.333
except that this particular single mom

0:00:55.333,0:00:58.654
was a paranoid schizophrenic,

0:00:58.654,0:01:03.267
and when Will was five years old she[br]tried to kill him with a butcher knife.

0:01:03.267,0:01:05.200
She was

0:01:05.200,0:01:09.335
taken away by authorities and placed in a[br]psychiatric hospital,

0:01:09.335,0:01:13.067
and so for the next several years Will[br]lived with his older brother

0:01:13.067,0:01:15.952
until he committed suicide by shooting[br]himself through the heart.

0:01:15.952,0:01:19.033
And after that

0:01:19.033,0:01:22.067
Will bounced around from one family[br]member to another,

0:01:22.067,0:01:27.400
until, by the time he was nine years old,[br]he was essentially living on his own.

0:01:27.400,0:01:31.788
That morning that I was sitting with[br]Katya and Lincoln, I looked at my son,

0:01:31.788,0:01:35.833
and I realized that when my client, Will,

0:01:35.833,0:01:37.900
was his age,

0:01:37.900,0:01:41.933
he'd been living by himself for two years.

0:01:41.933,0:01:44.513
Will eventually joined a gang

0:01:44.513,0:01:45.860
and committed

0:01:45.860,0:01:48.800
a number of very serious crimes,

0:01:48.800,0:01:51.633
including, most seriously of all,

0:01:51.633,0:01:53.929
a horrible, tragic murder.

0:01:53.929,0:01:59.500
And Will was ultimately executed

0:01:59.500,0:02:01.433
as punishment for that crime.

0:02:01.433,0:02:04.436
But I don't want to

0:02:04.436,0:02:06.108
talk today

0:02:06.108,0:02:10.357
about the morality of capital punishment. I certainly think that my client

0:02:10.357,0:02:15.367
shouldn't have been executed, but what I would like to do today instead

0:02:15.367,0:02:18.252
is talk about the death penalty

0:02:18.252,0:02:20.800
in a way I've never done before,

0:02:21.008,0:02:22.100
in a way

0:02:22.100,0:02:24.633
that is entirely noncontroversial.

0:02:24.633,0:02:27.516
I think that's possible,

0:02:27.516,0:02:30.233
because there is a corner

0:02:30.233,0:02:32.114
of the death penalty debate --

0:02:32.114,0:02:33.900
maybe the most important corner --

0:02:33.900,0:02:37.083
where everybody agrees,

0:02:37.083,0:02:41.033
where the most ardent death penalty supporters

0:02:41.069,0:02:45.047
and the most vociferous abolitionists

0:02:45.047,0:02:47.950
are on exactly the same page.

0:02:47.950,0:02:51.665
That's the corner I want to explore.

0:02:51.665,0:02:55.752
Before I do that, though, I want to spend a couple of minutes telling you how a death

0:02:55.752,0:02:57.767
penalty case unfolds,

0:02:57.767,0:03:03.205
and then I want to tell you two lessons that I have learned over the last 20 years

0:03:03.205,0:03:05.567
as a death penalty lawyer,

0:03:05.567,0:03:10.467
from watching well more than a hundred cases unfold in this way.

0:03:10.467,0:03:14.300
You can think of a death penalty case as[br]a story

0:03:14.300,0:03:16.467
that has four chapters.

0:03:16.467,0:03:19.733
The first chapter of every case is exactly the same,

0:03:19.733,0:03:21.619
and it is tragic.

0:03:21.619,0:03:22.725
It begins with the murder

0:03:22.725,0:03:25.589
of an innocent human being,

0:03:25.589,0:03:27.233
and it's followed by a trial

0:03:27.233,0:03:29.633
where the murderer is convicted and sent to death row,

0:03:29.633,0:03:31.534
and that death sentence is ultimately

0:03:31.534,0:03:33.667
upheld by the state appellate court.

0:03:33.667,0:03:38.593
The second chapter consists of a[br]complicated legal proceeding known as

0:03:38.593,0:03:41.286
a state habeas corpus appeal.

0:03:41.286,0:03:44.767
The third chapter is an even more complicated legal proceeding known as a

0:03:44.767,0:03:46.933
federal habeas corpus proceeding.

0:03:46.933,0:03:48.700
And the fourth chapter

0:03:48.700,0:03:52.850
is one where a variety of things can happen. The lawyers might file a clemency petition,

0:03:52.850,0:03:55.984
they might initiate even more complex[br]litigation,

0:03:55.984,0:03:58.333
or they might not do anything at all.

0:03:58.333,0:03:59.967
But that fourth chapter always ends

0:03:59.967,0:04:02.267
with an execution.

0:04:02.267,0:04:07.130
When I started representing death row[br]inmates more than 20 years ago,

0:04:07.130,0:04:11.067
people on death row did not have a right[br]to a lawyer in either the second

0:04:11.067,0:04:13.767
or the fourth chapter of this story.

0:04:13.767,0:04:15.280
They were on their own.

0:04:15.280,0:04:18.717
In fact, it wasn't until the late 1980s that they acquired a

0:04:18.717,0:04:20.923
right to a lawyer during the third chapter

0:04:20.923,0:04:22.757
of the story.

0:04:22.757,0:04:25.433
So what all of these death row inmates had to do

0:04:25.433,0:04:28.433
was rely on volunteer lawyers

0:04:28.433,0:04:30.629
to handle their legal proceedings.

0:04:30.629,0:04:33.717
The problem is that there were way more[br]guys on death row

0:04:33.717,0:04:39.233
than there were lawyers who had both the interest and the expertise to work on these cases.

0:04:39.233,0:04:40.733
And so inevitably,

0:04:40.733,0:04:44.433
lawyers drifted to cases that were[br]already in chapter four --

0:04:44.433,0:04:47.667
that makes sense, of course. Those are the[br]cases that are most urgent;

0:04:47.667,0:04:50.333
those are the guys who are closest to being executed.

0:04:50.333,0:04:54.522
Some of these lawyers were successful; they managed to get new trials for their clients.

0:04:54.522,0:04:58.467
Others of them managed to extend[br]the lives of their clients, sometimes by

0:04:58.467,0:05:00.467
years, sometimes by months.

0:05:00.467,0:05:02.567
But the one thing that didn't happen

0:05:02.567,0:05:07.400
was that there was never a serious and[br]sustained decline in the number of

0:05:07.400,0:05:09.800
annual executions in Texas.

0:05:09.800,0:05:13.567
In fact, as you can see from this graph,[br]from the time that the Texas execution

0:05:13.567,0:05:16.900
apparatus got efficient in the mid- to[br]late-1990s,

0:05:16.900,0:05:21.233
there've only been a couple of years where[br]the number of annual executions dipped

0:05:21.233,0:05:23.400
below 20.

0:05:23.400,0:05:24.940
In a typical year in Texas,

0:05:24.940,0:05:27.192
we're averaging about

0:05:27.192,0:05:28.864
two people a month.

0:05:28.864,0:05:33.500
In some years in Texas, we've executed[br]close to 40 people, and this number

0:05:33.500,0:05:38.222
has never significantly declined over[br]the last 15 years.

0:05:38.222,0:05:41.867
And yet, at the same time that we[br]continue to execute

0:05:41.867,0:05:43.967
about the same number of people every[br]year,

0:05:43.967,0:05:46.535
the number of people who we're sentencing[br]to death

0:05:46.535,0:05:47.696
on an annual basis

0:05:47.696,0:05:50.180
has dropped rather steeply.

0:05:50.180,0:05:51.567
So we have this paradox,

0:05:51.567,0:05:56.287
which is that the number of annual[br]executions has remained high

0:05:56.287,0:06:00.722
but the number of new death sentences[br]has gone down.

0:06:00.722,0:06:02.000
Why is that?

0:06:02.000,0:06:04.767
It can't be attributed to a decline in the murder rate,

0:06:04.767,0:06:06.600
because the murder rate has not declined

0:06:06.600,0:06:10.867
nearly so steeply as the red line on[br]that graph has gone down.

0:06:10.867,0:06:13.733
What has happened instead is

0:06:13.733,0:06:17.567
that juries have started to sentence[br]more and more people to prison

0:06:17.567,0:06:21.067
for the rest of their lives without the[br]possibility of parole,

0:06:21.067,0:06:24.383
rather than sending them to the[br]execution chamber.

0:06:24.383,0:06:26.733
Why has that happened?

0:06:26.733,0:06:31.140
it hasn't happened because of a[br]dissolution of popular support

0:06:31.140,0:06:34.700
for the death penalty. Death penalty opponents take great solace in the fact

0:06:34.700,0:06:39.360
that death penalty support in Texas is at[br]an all-time low.

0:06:39.360,0:06:41.367
Do you know what all-time low in Texas[br]means?

0:06:41.367,0:06:43.933
It means that it's in the low 60 percent.

0:06:43.933,0:06:47.667
Now that's really good compared to the[br]mid 1980s, when it was in

0:06:47.667,0:06:49.391
excess of 80 percent,

0:06:49.391,0:06:53.800
but we can't explain the decline in[br]death sentences and the affinity for

0:06:53.800,0:06:57.667
life without the possibility of parole[br]by an erosion of support for the death

0:06:57.667,0:07:00.133
penalty, because people still support the[br]death penalty.

0:07:00.133,0:07:03.207
What's happened to cause this phenomenon?

0:07:03.207,0:07:04.833
What's happened is

0:07:04.833,0:07:05.738
that lawyers

0:07:05.738,0:07:09.433
who represent death row inmates have[br]shifted their focus

0:07:09.433,0:07:13.935
to earlier and earlier chapters of the[br]death penalty story.

0:07:13.935,0:07:17.200
So 25 years ago, they focused on[br]chapter four.

0:07:17.200,0:07:21.063
And they went from chapter four 25 years ago to chapter three

0:07:21.063,0:07:22.767
in the late 1980s.

0:07:22.767,0:07:26.167
And they went from chapter three in the[br]late 1980s to chapter two in

0:07:26.167,0:07:29.367
the mid-1990s. And beginning[br]in the mid- to late-1990s,

0:07:29.367,0:07:32.557
they began to focus on chapter one of[br]the story.

0:07:32.557,0:07:36.567
Now you might think that this decline in[br]death sentences and the increase in the

0:07:36.567,0:07:39.033
number of life sentences is a good thing[br]or a bad thing.

0:07:39.033,0:07:41.589
I don't want to have a conversation about that[br]today.

0:07:41.589,0:07:44.747
All that I want to tell you is that the[br]reason that this has happened

0:07:44.747,0:07:47.859
is because death penalty lawyers have[br]understood

0:07:47.859,0:07:50.633
that the earlier you intervene in a[br]case,

0:07:50.633,0:07:55.133
the greater the likelihood that you're[br]going to save your client's life.

0:07:55.133,0:07:57.000
That's the first thing I've learned.

0:07:57.000,0:07:58.935
Here's the second thing I learned:

0:07:58.935,0:08:00.100
My client Will

0:08:00.100,0:08:03.556
was not the exception to the rule;

0:08:03.556,0:08:06.633
he was the rule.

0:08:06.633,0:08:10.167
I sometimes say, if you tell me the name[br]of a death row inmate --

0:08:10.167,0:08:13.215
doesn't matter what state he's in, doesn't matter if I've ever met him before --

0:08:13.215,0:08:15.833
I'll write his biography for you.

0:08:15.833,0:08:19.033
And eight out of 10 times,

0:08:19.033,0:08:20.667
the details of that biography

0:08:20.667,0:08:23.130
will be more or less accurate.

0:08:23.130,0:08:27.133
And the reason for that is that 80 percent of the people on death row are

0:08:27.133,0:08:31.100
people who came from the same sort of[br]dysfunctional family that Will did.

0:08:31.100,0:08:33.068
Eighty percent of the people on death row

0:08:33.068,0:08:35.200
are people who had exposure

0:08:35.200,0:08:37.833
to the juvenile justice system.

0:08:37.833,0:08:39.964
That's the second lesson

0:08:39.964,0:08:41.767
that I've learned.

0:08:41.767,0:08:45.167
Now we're right on the cusp of that corner

0:08:45.167,0:08:48.313
where everybody's going to agree.

0:08:48.313,0:08:50.506
People in this room might disagree

0:08:50.506,0:08:52.619
about whether Will should have been[br]executed,

0:08:52.619,0:08:55.133
but I think everybody would agree

0:08:55.133,0:08:58.833
that the best possible version of his story

0:08:58.833,0:09:00.167
would be a story

0:09:00.167,0:09:04.949
where no murder ever occurs.

0:09:04.949,0:09:06.933
How do we do that?

0:09:06.933,0:09:10.963
When our son Lincoln was working on that[br]math problem

0:09:10.963,0:09:14.005
two weeks ago, it was a big, gnarly problem.

0:09:14.005,0:09:17.488
And he was learning how, when you have a big old gnarly problem,

0:09:17.488,0:09:21.400
sometimes the solution is to slice it[br]into smaller problems.

0:09:21.400,0:09:24.967
That's what we do for most problems -- in[br]math and physics, even in social policy --

0:09:24.967,0:09:28.733
we slice them into smaller, more[br]manageable problems.

0:09:28.733,0:09:30.468
But every once in a while,

0:09:30.468,0:09:32.500
as Dwight Eisenhower said,

0:09:32.500,0:09:34.020
the way you solve a problem

0:09:34.020,0:09:36.100
is to make it bigger.

0:09:36.100,0:09:40.033
The way we solve this problem

0:09:40.033,0:09:43.889
is to make the issue of the death[br]penalty bigger.

0:09:43.889,0:09:46.133
We have to say, all right.

0:09:46.133,0:09:48.394
We have these four chapters

0:09:48.394,0:09:51.233
of a death penalty story,

0:09:51.233,0:09:53.000
but what happens before

0:09:53.000,0:09:55.127
that story begins?

0:09:55.127,0:09:59.933
How can we intervene in the life of a murderer

0:09:59.933,0:10:02.600
before he's a murderer?

0:10:02.600,0:10:04.949
What options do we have

0:10:04.949,0:10:06.333
to nudge that person

0:10:06.333,0:10:07.567
off of the path

0:10:07.567,0:10:11.730
that is going to lead to a result that[br]everybody --

0:10:11.730,0:10:14.586
death penalty supporters and death penalty[br]opponents --

0:10:14.586,0:10:15.333
still think

0:10:15.333,0:10:17.767
is a bad result:

0:10:17.767,0:10:20.333
the murder of an innocent human being?

0:10:22.248,0:10:24.933
You know, sometimes people say

0:10:24.933,0:10:26.173
that something

0:10:26.173,0:10:28.300
isn't rocket science.

0:10:28.300,0:10:31.633
And by that, what they mean is rocket[br]science is really complicated

0:10:31.633,0:10:35.135
and this problem that we're talking[br]about now is really simple.

0:10:35.135,0:10:36.567
Well that's rocket science;

0:10:36.567,0:10:38.367
that's the mathematical expression

0:10:38.367,0:10:42.233
for the thrust created by a rocket.

0:10:42.233,0:10:44.600
What we're talking about today

0:10:44.600,0:10:47.001
is just as complicated.

0:10:47.001,0:10:49.625
What we're talking about today is also

0:10:49.625,0:10:52.272
rocket science.

0:10:52.272,0:10:54.083
My client Will

0:10:54.083,0:10:56.753
and 80 percent of the people on[br]death row

0:10:56.753,0:11:00.200
had five chapters in their lives

0:11:00.200,0:11:01.733
that came before

0:11:01.733,0:11:03.533
the four chapters of the death penalty[br]story.

0:11:03.533,0:11:08.300
I think of these five chapters as points[br]of intervention,

0:11:08.300,0:11:11.167
places in their lives when our society

0:11:11.167,0:11:16.100
could've intervened in their lives and[br]nudged them off of the path that they were on

0:11:16.100,0:11:20.368
that created a consequence that we all -- death penalty supporters or death

0:11:20.368,0:11:22.086
penalty opponents --

0:11:22.086,0:11:24.106
say was a bad result.

0:11:24.106,0:11:26.733
Now, during each of these five[br]chapters:

0:11:26.733,0:11:28.367
when his mother was pregnant with him;

0:11:28.367,0:11:30.633
in his early childhood years;

0:11:30.633,0:11:32.500
when he was in elementary school;

0:11:32.500,0:11:34.667
when he was in middle school and then high[br]school;

0:11:34.667,0:11:38.167
and when he was in the juvenile justice[br]system -- during each of those five chapters,

0:11:38.167,0:11:41.382
there were a wide variety of things that society could have done.

0:11:41.382,0:11:43.500
In fact, if we just imagine

0:11:43.500,0:11:48.600
that there are five different modes of[br]intervention, the way that society could intervene

0:11:48.600,0:11:50.484
in each of those five chapters,

0:11:50.484,0:11:52.700
and we could mix and match them any way[br]we want,

0:11:52.700,0:11:56.870
there are 3,000 -- more than 3,000 -- possible strategies

0:11:56.870,0:12:00.733
that we could embrace in order to nudge[br]kids like Will

0:12:00.733,0:12:03.567
off of the path that they're on.

0:12:03.567,0:12:05.322
So I'm not standing here today

0:12:05.322,0:12:07.400
with the solution.

0:12:07.400,0:12:11.933
But the fact that we still have a lot to learn,

0:12:11.933,0:12:15.306
that doesn't mean that we don't know a lot already.

0:12:15.306,0:12:18.200
We know from experience in other states

0:12:18.200,0:12:21.867
that there are a wide variety of modes[br]of intervention

0:12:21.867,0:12:25.755
that we could be using in Texas, and in[br]every other state that isn't using them,

0:12:25.755,0:12:30.748
in order to prevent a consequence that we all agree is bad.

0:12:30.748,0:12:33.371
I'll just mention a few.

0:12:33.371,0:12:37.296
I won't talk today about reforming the[br]legal system.

0:12:37.296,0:12:42.067
That's probably a topic that is best[br]reserved for a room full of lawyers and judges.

0:12:42.067,0:12:45.887
Instead, let me talk about a couple of[br]modes of intervention

0:12:45.887,0:12:48.255
that we can all help accomplish,

0:12:48.255,0:12:50.740
because they are modes of intervention[br]that will come about

0:12:50.740,0:12:54.700
when legislators and policymakers, when taxpayers and citizens,

0:12:54.700,0:12:56.933
agree that that's what we ought to be[br]doing

0:12:56.933,0:12:59.267
and that's how we ought to be spending our money.

0:12:59.267,0:13:01.653
We could be providing early childhood care

0:13:01.653,0:13:07.467
for economically disadvantaged and[br]otherwise troubled kids,

0:13:07.467,0:13:09.850
and we could be doing it for free.

0:13:09.850,0:13:13.960
And we could be nudging kids like Will[br]off of the path that we're on.

0:13:13.960,0:13:17.800
There are other states that do that, but we don't.

0:13:17.800,0:13:21.901
We could be providing special schools, at[br]both the high school level

0:13:21.901,0:13:25.268
and the middle school level, but even in K-5,

0:13:25.268,0:13:29.657
that target economically and otherwise[br]disadvantaged kids, and particularly kids

0:13:29.657,0:13:30.833
who have had exposure

0:13:30.833,0:13:32.933
to the juvenile justice system.

0:13:32.933,0:13:34.800
There are a handful of states that do that;

0:13:34.800,0:13:37.482
Texas doesn't.

0:13:37.482,0:13:39.300
There's one other thing we can be doing --

0:13:39.300,0:13:41.638
well, there are a bunch of other things that we could be doing -- there's one other thing that we could be

0:13:41.638,0:13:44.200
doing that I'm going to mention, and this is[br]gonna be the only controversial thing

0:13:44.200,0:13:46.833
that I say today.

0:13:46.833,0:13:48.133
We could be intervening

0:13:48.133,0:13:50.233
much more aggressively

0:13:50.233,0:13:53.457
into dangerously dysfunctional homes,

0:13:53.457,0:13:55.300
and getting kids out of them

0:13:55.300,0:14:00.771
before their moms pick up butcher knives[br]and threaten to kill them.

0:14:00.771,0:14:02.791
If we're gonna do that,

0:14:02.791,0:14:04.867
we need a place to put them.

0:14:04.867,0:14:08.271
Even if we do all of those things, some[br]kids are going to fall through the cracks

0:14:08.271,0:14:11.867
and they're going to end up in that last[br]chapter before the murder story begins,

0:14:11.867,0:14:13.900
they're going to end up in the juvenile[br]justice system.

0:14:13.900,0:14:17.002
And even if that happens,

0:14:17.002,0:14:18.906
it's not yet too late.

0:14:18.906,0:14:21.700
There's still time to nudge them,

0:14:21.700,0:14:23.457
if we think about nudging them

0:14:23.457,0:14:25.826
rather than just punishing them.

0:14:25.826,0:14:28.566
There are two professors in the Northeast --[br]one at Yale and one at Maryland --

0:14:28.566,0:14:30.333
they set up a school

0:14:30.333,0:14:34.233
that is attached to a juvenile prison.

0:14:34.233,0:14:37.482
And the kids are in prison, but they go[br]to school from eight in the morning

0:14:37.482,0:14:39.167
until four in the afternoon.

0:14:39.167,0:14:40.803
Now, it was logistically difficult.

0:14:40.803,0:14:41.967
They had to recruit teachers

0:14:41.967,0:14:45.333
who wanted to teach inside a prison, they had to establish strict

0:14:45.333,0:14:48.535
separation between the people who work[br]at the school and the prison authorities,

0:14:48.535,0:14:51.967
and most dauntingly of all, they needed[br]to invent a new curriculum because

0:14:51.967,0:14:52.967
you know what?

0:14:52.967,0:14:58.467
People don't come into and out of prison[br]on a semester basis.

0:14:58.467,0:15:01.584
But they did all those things.

0:15:01.584,0:15:04.333
Now what do all of these things have in common?

0:15:04.333,0:15:10.700
What all of these things have in common[br]is that they cost money.

0:15:10.700,0:15:13.728
Some of the people in the room might be[br]old enough to remember

0:15:13.728,0:15:17.490
the guy on the old oil filter commercial.

0:15:17.490,0:15:21.300
He used to say, "Well, you can pay me now

0:15:21.300,0:15:24.367
or you can pay me later."

0:15:24.367,0:15:26.500
What we're doing

0:15:26.500,0:15:28.520
in the death penalty system

0:15:28.520,0:15:32.119
is we're paying later.

0:15:32.119,0:15:33.967
But the thing is

0:15:33.967,0:15:37.833
that for every 15,000 dollars[br]that we spend intervening

0:15:37.833,0:15:42.200
in the lives of economically and[br]otherwise disadvantaged kids

0:15:42.200,0:15:43.520
in those earlier chapters,

0:15:43.520,0:15:47.933
we save 80,000 dollars in crime-related costs down the road.

0:15:47.933,0:15:49.696
Even if you don't agree

0:15:49.696,0:15:52.092
that there's a moral imperative that we do it,

0:15:53.435,0:15:56.012
it just makes economic sense.

0:15:58.589,0:16:02.612
I want to tell you about the last conversation that[br]I had with Will.

0:16:02.612,0:16:06.700
It was the day that he was going to be executed,

0:16:06.700,0:16:11.012
and we were just talking.

0:16:11.012,0:16:12.067
There was nothing left to do

0:16:12.067,0:16:13.682
in his case.

0:16:13.682,0:16:16.033
And we were talking about his life.

0:16:16.033,0:16:18.900
And he was talking first about his dad,[br]who he hardly knew,

0:16:18.900,0:16:19.733
who had died,

0:16:19.733,0:16:22.367
and then about his mom,

0:16:22.367,0:16:24.131
who he did know,

0:16:24.131,0:16:26.300
who is still alive.

0:16:26.300,0:16:29.000
And I said to him,

0:16:29.000,0:16:31.051
"I know the story.

0:16:31.051,0:16:32.867
I've read the records.

0:16:32.867,0:16:35.509
I know that she tried to kill you."

0:16:35.509,0:16:37.947
I said, "But I've always wondered whether you[br]really

0:16:37.947,0:16:40.067
actually remember that."

0:16:40.067,0:16:41.570
I said, "I don't remember anything

0:16:41.570,0:16:43.729
from when I was five years old.

0:16:43.729,0:16:46.667
Maybe you just remember somebody telling you."

0:16:46.667,0:16:49.167
And he looked at me and he leaned forward,

0:16:49.167,0:16:52.767
and he said, "Professor," -- he'd known me for[br]12 years, he still called me Professor.

0:16:52.767,0:16:56.082
He said, "Professor, I don't mean any[br]disrespect by this,

0:16:56.082,0:16:57.733
but when your mama

0:16:57.733,0:17:00.833
picks up a butcher knife that looks bigger[br]than you are,

0:17:00.833,0:17:04.633
and chases you through the house[br]screaming she's gonna kill you,

0:17:04.633,0:17:08.458
and you have to lock yourself in the[br]bathroom and lean against the door and

0:17:08.458,0:17:11.221
holler for help until the police get[br]there,"

0:17:11.221,0:17:14.300
he looked at me and he said,

0:17:14.300,0:17:17.800
"that's something you don't forget."

0:17:17.800,0:17:20.300
I hope there's one thing you all won't forget:

0:17:20.300,0:17:23.156
In between the time you arrived here[br]this morning and the time we break for lunch,

0:17:23.156,0:17:26.567
there are going to be four homicides

0:17:26.567,0:17:28.000
in the United States.

0:17:28.000,0:17:32.167
We're going to devote enormous social[br]resources to punishing the people who

0:17:32.167,0:17:34.467
commit those crimes, and that's[br]appropriate, because we should punish

0:17:34.467,0:17:36.533
people who do bad things.

0:17:36.533,0:17:40.100
But three of those crimes are[br]preventable.

0:17:40.100,0:17:43.010
If we make the picture bigger

0:17:43.172,0:17:47.816
and devote our attention to the[br]earlier chapters,

0:17:47.816,0:17:51.200
then we're never going to write the[br]first sentence

0:17:51.200,0:17:52.994
that begins the death penalty story.

0:17:52.994,0:17:54.700
Thank you.

0:17:54.700,0:17:56.031
(Applause)