WEBVTT 00:00:01.567 --> 00:00:03.460 Two weeks ago, 00:00:03.460 --> 00:00:05.567 I was sitting at the 00:00:05.567 --> 00:00:08.567 kitchen table with my wife Katya, 00:00:08.567 --> 00:00:13.433 and we were talking about what I was gonna talk about today. 00:00:13.433 --> 00:00:18.460 We have an 11-year-old son; his name is Lincoln. He was sitting at the same table 00:00:18.460 --> 00:00:21.153 doing his math homework. 00:00:21.153 --> 00:00:22.570 And during a pause in my conversation 00:00:23.754 --> 00:00:26.267 with Katya, I looked over at Lincoln 00:00:26.267 --> 00:00:28.133 and I was suddenly thunderstruck 00:00:30.167 --> 00:00:33.633 by a recollection of a client of mine. NOTE Paragraph 00:00:33.633 --> 00:00:36.525 My client was a guy named Will. 00:00:36.525 --> 00:00:38.443 He was from North Texas. 00:00:38.443 --> 00:00:43.539 He never knew his father very well, because his father left 00:00:43.539 --> 00:00:47.233 his mom while she was pregnant with him. 00:00:47.233 --> 00:00:51.600 And so, he was destined to be raised by a single mom, 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:53.167 which might have been all right 00:00:53.167 --> 00:00:55.333 except that this particular single mom 00:00:55.333 --> 00:00:58.654 was a paranoid schizophrenic, 00:00:58.654 --> 00:01:03.267 and when Will was five years old she tried to kill him with a butcher knife. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:03.267 --> 00:01:05.200 She was 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:09.335 taken away by authorities and placed in a psychiatric hospital, 00:01:09.335 --> 00:01:13.067 and so for the next several years Will lived with his older brother 00:01:13.067 --> 00:01:15.952 until he committed suicide by shooting himself through the heart. 00:01:15.952 --> 00:01:19.033 And after that 00:01:19.033 --> 00:01:22.067 Will bounced around from one family member to another, 00:01:22.067 --> 00:01:27.400 until, by the time he was nine years old, he was essentially living on his own. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:31.788 That morning that I was sitting with Katya and Lincoln, I looked at my son, 00:01:31.788 --> 00:01:35.833 and I realized that when my client, Will, 00:01:35.833 --> 00:01:37.900 was his age, 00:01:37.900 --> 00:01:41.933 he'd been living by himself for two years. 00:01:41.933 --> 00:01:44.513 Will eventually joined a gang 00:01:44.513 --> 00:01:45.860 and committed 00:01:45.860 --> 00:01:48.800 a number of very serious crimes, 00:01:48.800 --> 00:01:51.633 including, most seriously of all, 00:01:51.633 --> 00:01:53.929 a horrible, tragic murder. 00:01:53.929 --> 00:01:59.500 And Will was ultimately executed 00:01:59.500 --> 00:02:01.433 as punishment for that crime. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:01.433 --> 00:02:04.436 But I don't want to 00:02:04.436 --> 00:02:06.108 talk today 00:02:06.108 --> 00:02:10.357 about the morality of capital punishment. I certainly think that my client 00:02:10.357 --> 00:02:15.367 shouldn't have been executed, but what I would like to do today instead 00:02:15.367 --> 00:02:18.252 is talk about the death penalty 00:02:18.252 --> 00:02:20.800 in a way I've never done before, 00:02:21.008 --> 00:02:22.100 in a way 00:02:22.100 --> 00:02:24.633 that is entirely noncontroversial. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:24.633 --> 00:02:27.516 I think that's possible, 00:02:27.516 --> 00:02:30.233 because there is a corner 00:02:30.233 --> 00:02:32.114 of the death penalty debate -- 00:02:32.114 --> 00:02:33.900 maybe the most important corner -- 00:02:33.900 --> 00:02:37.083 where everybody agrees, 00:02:37.083 --> 00:02:41.033 where the most ardent death penalty supporters 00:02:41.069 --> 00:02:45.047 and the most vociferous abolitionists 00:02:45.047 --> 00:02:47.950 are on exactly the same page. 00:02:47.950 --> 00:02:51.665 That's the corner I want to explore. NOTE Paragraph 00:02:51.665 --> 00:02:55.752 Before I do that, though, I want to spend a couple of minutes telling you how a death 00:02:55.752 --> 00:02:57.767 penalty case unfolds, 00:02:57.767 --> 00:03:03.205 and then I want to tell you two lessons that I have learned over the last 20 years 00:03:03.205 --> 00:03:05.567 as a death penalty lawyer, 00:03:05.567 --> 00:03:10.467 from watching well more than a hundred cases unfold in this way. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:10.467 --> 00:03:14.300 You can think of a death penalty case as a story 00:03:14.300 --> 00:03:16.467 that has four chapters. 00:03:16.467 --> 00:03:19.733 The first chapter of every case is exactly the same, 00:03:19.733 --> 00:03:21.619 and it is tragic. 00:03:21.619 --> 00:03:22.725 It begins with the murder 00:03:22.725 --> 00:03:25.589 of an innocent human being, 00:03:25.589 --> 00:03:27.233 and it's followed by a trial 00:03:27.233 --> 00:03:29.633 where the murderer is convicted and sent to death row, 00:03:29.633 --> 00:03:31.534 and that death sentence is ultimately 00:03:31.534 --> 00:03:33.667 upheld by the state appellate court. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:33.667 --> 00:03:38.593 The second chapter consists of a complicated legal proceeding known as 00:03:38.593 --> 00:03:41.286 a state habeas corpus appeal. 00:03:41.286 --> 00:03:44.767 The third chapter is an even more complicated legal proceeding known as a 00:03:44.767 --> 00:03:46.933 federal habeas corpus proceeding. 00:03:46.933 --> 00:03:48.700 And the fourth chapter 00:03:48.700 --> 00:03:52.850 is one where a variety of things can happen. The lawyers might file a clemency petition, 00:03:52.850 --> 00:03:55.984 they might initiate even more complex litigation, 00:03:55.984 --> 00:03:58.333 or they might not do anything at all. 00:03:58.333 --> 00:03:59.967 But that fourth chapter always ends 00:03:59.967 --> 00:04:02.267 with an execution. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:02.267 --> 00:04:07.130 When I started representing death row inmates more than 20 years ago, 00:04:07.130 --> 00:04:11.067 people on death row did not have a right to a lawyer in either the second 00:04:11.067 --> 00:04:13.767 or the fourth chapter of this story. 00:04:13.767 --> 00:04:15.280 They were on their own. 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:18.717 In fact, it wasn't until the late 1980s that they acquired a 00:04:18.717 --> 00:04:20.923 right to a lawyer during the third chapter 00:04:20.923 --> 00:04:22.757 of the story. 00:04:22.757 --> 00:04:25.433 So what all of these death row inmates had to do 00:04:25.433 --> 00:04:28.433 was rely on volunteer lawyers 00:04:28.433 --> 00:04:30.629 to handle their legal proceedings. 00:04:30.629 --> 00:04:33.717 The problem is that there were way more guys on death row 00:04:33.717 --> 00:04:39.233 than there were lawyers who had both the interest and the expertise to work on these cases. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:39.233 --> 00:04:40.733 And so inevitably, 00:04:40.733 --> 00:04:44.433 lawyers drifted to cases that were already in chapter four -- 00:04:44.433 --> 00:04:47.667 that makes sense, of course. Those are the cases that are most urgent; 00:04:47.667 --> 00:04:50.333 those are the guys who are closest to being executed. 00:04:50.333 --> 00:04:54.522 Some of these lawyers were successful; they managed to get new trials for their clients. 00:04:54.522 --> 00:04:58.467 Others of them managed to extend the lives of their clients, sometimes by 00:04:58.467 --> 00:05:00.467 years, sometimes by months. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:00.467 --> 00:05:02.567 But the one thing that didn't happen 00:05:02.567 --> 00:05:07.400 was that there was never a serious and sustained decline in the number of 00:05:07.400 --> 00:05:09.800 annual executions in Texas. 00:05:09.800 --> 00:05:13.567 In fact, as you can see from this graph, from the time that the Texas execution 00:05:13.567 --> 00:05:16.900 apparatus got efficient in the mid- to late-1990s, 00:05:16.900 --> 00:05:21.233 there've only been a couple of years where the number of annual executions dipped 00:05:21.233 --> 00:05:23.400 below 20. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:23.400 --> 00:05:24.940 In a typical year in Texas, 00:05:24.940 --> 00:05:27.192 we're averaging about 00:05:27.192 --> 00:05:28.864 two people a month. 00:05:28.864 --> 00:05:33.500 In some years in Texas, we've executed close to 40 people, and this number 00:05:33.500 --> 00:05:38.222 has never significantly declined over the last 15 years. 00:05:38.222 --> 00:05:41.867 And yet, at the same time that we continue to execute 00:05:41.867 --> 00:05:43.967 about the same number of people every year, 00:05:43.967 --> 00:05:46.535 the number of people who we're sentencing to death 00:05:46.535 --> 00:05:47.696 on an annual basis 00:05:47.696 --> 00:05:50.180 has dropped rather steeply. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:50.180 --> 00:05:51.567 So we have this paradox, 00:05:51.567 --> 00:05:56.287 which is that the number of annual executions has remained high 00:05:56.287 --> 00:06:00.722 but the number of new death sentences has gone down. 00:06:00.722 --> 00:06:02.000 Why is that? 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:04.767 It can't be attributed to a decline in the murder rate, 00:06:04.767 --> 00:06:06.600 because the murder rate has not declined 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:10.867 nearly so steeply as the red line on that graph has gone down. 00:06:10.867 --> 00:06:13.733 What has happened instead is 00:06:13.733 --> 00:06:17.567 that juries have started to sentence more and more people to prison 00:06:17.567 --> 00:06:21.067 for the rest of their lives without the possibility of parole, 00:06:21.067 --> 00:06:24.383 rather than sending them to the execution chamber. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:24.383 --> 00:06:26.733 Why has that happened? 00:06:26.733 --> 00:06:31.140 it hasn't happened because of a dissolution of popular support 00:06:31.140 --> 00:06:34.700 for the death penalty. Death penalty opponents take great solace in the fact 00:06:34.700 --> 00:06:39.360 that death penalty support in Texas is at an all-time low. 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:41.367 Do you know what all-time low in Texas means? 00:06:41.367 --> 00:06:43.933 It means that it's in the low 60 percent. 00:06:43.933 --> 00:06:47.667 Now that's really good compared to the mid 1980s, when it was in 00:06:47.667 --> 00:06:49.391 excess of 80 percent, 00:06:49.391 --> 00:06:53.800 but we can't explain the decline in death sentences and the affinity for 00:06:53.800 --> 00:06:57.667 life without the possibility of parole by an erosion of support for the death 00:06:57.667 --> 00:07:00.133 penalty, because people still support the death penalty. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:00.133 --> 00:07:03.207 What's happened to cause this phenomenon? 00:07:03.207 --> 00:07:04.833 What's happened is 00:07:04.833 --> 00:07:05.738 that lawyers 00:07:05.738 --> 00:07:09.433 who represent death row inmates have shifted their focus 00:07:09.433 --> 00:07:13.935 to earlier and earlier chapters of the death penalty story. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:13.935 --> 00:07:17.200 So 25 years ago, they focused on chapter four. 00:07:17.200 --> 00:07:21.063 And they went from chapter four 25 years ago to chapter three 00:07:21.063 --> 00:07:22.767 in the late 1980s. 00:07:22.767 --> 00:07:26.167 And they went from chapter three in the late 1980s to chapter two in 00:07:26.167 --> 00:07:29.367 the mid-1990s. And beginning in the mid- to late-1990s, 00:07:29.367 --> 00:07:32.557 they began to focus on chapter one of the story. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:32.557 --> 00:07:36.567 Now you might think that this decline in death sentences and the increase in the 00:07:36.567 --> 00:07:39.033 number of life sentences is a good thing or a bad thing. 00:07:39.033 --> 00:07:41.589 I don't want to have a conversation about that today. 00:07:41.589 --> 00:07:44.747 All that I want to tell you is that the reason that this has happened 00:07:44.747 --> 00:07:47.859 is because death penalty lawyers have understood 00:07:47.859 --> 00:07:50.633 that the earlier you intervene in a case, 00:07:50.633 --> 00:07:55.133 the greater the likelihood that you're going to save your client's life. 00:07:55.133 --> 00:07:57.000 That's the first thing I've learned. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:57.000 --> 00:07:58.935 Here's the second thing I learned: 00:07:58.935 --> 00:08:00.100 My client Will 00:08:00.100 --> 00:08:03.556 was not the exception to the rule; 00:08:03.556 --> 00:08:06.633 he was the rule. 00:08:06.633 --> 00:08:10.167 I sometimes say, if you tell me the name of a death row inmate -- 00:08:10.167 --> 00:08:13.215 doesn't matter what state he's in, doesn't matter if I've ever met him before -- 00:08:13.215 --> 00:08:15.833 I'll write his biography for you. 00:08:15.833 --> 00:08:19.033 And eight out of 10 times, 00:08:19.033 --> 00:08:20.667 the details of that biography 00:08:20.667 --> 00:08:23.130 will be more or less accurate. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:23.130 --> 00:08:27.133 And the reason for that is that 80 percent of the people on death row are 00:08:27.133 --> 00:08:31.100 people who came from the same sort of dysfunctional family that Will did. 00:08:31.100 --> 00:08:33.068 Eighty percent of the people on death row 00:08:33.068 --> 00:08:35.200 are people who had exposure 00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:37.833 to the juvenile justice system. 00:08:37.833 --> 00:08:39.964 That's the second lesson 00:08:39.964 --> 00:08:41.767 that I've learned. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:41.767 --> 00:08:45.167 Now we're right on the cusp of that corner 00:08:45.167 --> 00:08:48.313 where everybody's going to agree. 00:08:48.313 --> 00:08:50.506 People in this room might disagree 00:08:50.506 --> 00:08:52.619 about whether Will should have been executed, 00:08:52.619 --> 00:08:55.133 but I think everybody would agree 00:08:55.133 --> 00:08:58.833 that the best possible version of his story 00:08:58.833 --> 00:09:00.167 would be a story 00:09:00.167 --> 00:09:04.949 where no murder ever occurs. 00:09:04.949 --> 00:09:06.933 How do we do that? NOTE Paragraph 00:09:06.933 --> 00:09:10.963 When our son Lincoln was working on that math problem 00:09:10.963 --> 00:09:14.005 two weeks ago, it was a big, gnarly problem. 00:09:14.005 --> 00:09:17.488 And he was learning how, when you have a big old gnarly problem, 00:09:17.488 --> 00:09:21.400 sometimes the solution is to slice it into smaller problems. 00:09:21.400 --> 00:09:24.967 That's what we do for most problems -- in math and physics, even in social policy -- 00:09:24.967 --> 00:09:28.733 we slice them into smaller, more manageable problems. 00:09:28.733 --> 00:09:30.468 But every once in a while, 00:09:30.468 --> 00:09:32.500 as Dwight Eisenhower said, 00:09:32.500 --> 00:09:34.020 the way you solve a problem 00:09:34.020 --> 00:09:36.100 is to make it bigger. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:36.100 --> 00:09:40.033 The way we solve this problem 00:09:40.033 --> 00:09:43.889 is to make the issue of the death penalty bigger. 00:09:43.889 --> 00:09:46.133 We have to say, all right. 00:09:46.133 --> 00:09:48.394 We have these four chapters 00:09:48.394 --> 00:09:51.233 of a death penalty story, 00:09:51.233 --> 00:09:53.000 but what happens before 00:09:53.000 --> 00:09:55.127 that story begins? 00:09:55.127 --> 00:09:59.933 How can we intervene in the life of a murderer 00:09:59.933 --> 00:10:02.600 before he's a murderer? 00:10:02.600 --> 00:10:04.949 What options do we have 00:10:04.949 --> 00:10:06.333 to nudge that person 00:10:06.333 --> 00:10:07.567 off of the path 00:10:07.567 --> 00:10:11.730 that is going to lead to a result that everybody -- 00:10:11.730 --> 00:10:14.586 death penalty supporters and death penalty opponents -- 00:10:14.586 --> 00:10:15.333 still think 00:10:15.333 --> 00:10:17.767 is a bad result: 00:10:17.767 --> 00:10:20.333 the murder of an innocent human being? NOTE Paragraph 00:10:22.248 --> 00:10:24.933 You know, sometimes people say 00:10:24.933 --> 00:10:26.173 that something 00:10:26.173 --> 00:10:28.300 isn't rocket science. 00:10:28.300 --> 00:10:31.633 And by that, what they mean is rocket science is really complicated 00:10:31.633 --> 00:10:35.135 and this problem that we're talking about now is really simple. 00:10:35.135 --> 00:10:36.567 Well that's rocket science; 00:10:36.567 --> 00:10:38.367 that's the mathematical expression 00:10:38.367 --> 00:10:42.233 for the thrust created by a rocket. 00:10:42.233 --> 00:10:44.600 What we're talking about today 00:10:44.600 --> 00:10:47.001 is just as complicated. 00:10:47.001 --> 00:10:49.625 What we're talking about today is also 00:10:49.625 --> 00:10:52.272 rocket science. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:52.272 --> 00:10:54.083 My client Will 00:10:54.083 --> 00:10:56.753 and 80 percent of the people on death row 00:10:56.753 --> 00:11:00.200 had five chapters in their lives 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:01.733 that came before 00:11:01.733 --> 00:11:03.533 the four chapters of the death penalty story. 00:11:03.533 --> 00:11:08.300 I think of these five chapters as points of intervention, 00:11:08.300 --> 00:11:11.167 places in their lives when our society 00:11:11.167 --> 00:11:16.100 could've intervened in their lives and nudged them off of the path that they were on 00:11:16.100 --> 00:11:20.368 that created a consequence that we all -- death penalty supporters or death 00:11:20.368 --> 00:11:22.086 penalty opponents -- 00:11:22.086 --> 00:11:24.106 say was a bad result. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:24.106 --> 00:11:26.733 Now, during each of these five chapters: 00:11:26.733 --> 00:11:28.367 when his mother was pregnant with him; 00:11:28.367 --> 00:11:30.633 in his early childhood years; 00:11:30.633 --> 00:11:32.500 when he was in elementary school; 00:11:32.500 --> 00:11:34.667 when he was in middle school and then high school; 00:11:34.667 --> 00:11:38.167 and when he was in the juvenile justice system -- during each of those five chapters, 00:11:38.167 --> 00:11:41.382 there were a wide variety of things that society could have done. 00:11:41.382 --> 00:11:43.500 In fact, if we just imagine 00:11:43.500 --> 00:11:48.600 that there are five different modes of intervention, the way that society could intervene 00:11:48.600 --> 00:11:50.484 in each of those five chapters, 00:11:50.484 --> 00:11:52.700 and we could mix and match them any way we want, 00:11:52.700 --> 00:11:56.870 there are 3,000 -- more than 3,000 -- possible strategies 00:11:56.870 --> 00:12:00.733 that we could embrace in order to nudge kids like Will 00:12:00.733 --> 00:12:03.567 off of the path that they're on. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:03.567 --> 00:12:05.322 So I'm not standing here today 00:12:05.322 --> 00:12:07.400 with the solution. 00:12:07.400 --> 00:12:11.933 But the fact that we still have a lot to learn, 00:12:11.933 --> 00:12:15.306 that doesn't mean that we don't know a lot already. 00:12:15.306 --> 00:12:18.200 We know from experience in other states 00:12:18.200 --> 00:12:21.867 that there are a wide variety of modes of intervention 00:12:21.867 --> 00:12:25.755 that we could be using in Texas, and in every other state that isn't using them, 00:12:25.755 --> 00:12:30.748 in order to prevent a consequence that we all agree is bad. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:30.748 --> 00:12:33.371 I'll just mention a few. 00:12:33.371 --> 00:12:37.296 I won't talk today about reforming the legal system. 00:12:37.296 --> 00:12:42.067 That's probably a topic that is best reserved for a room full of lawyers and judges. 00:12:42.067 --> 00:12:45.887 Instead, let me talk about a couple of modes of intervention 00:12:45.887 --> 00:12:48.255 that we can all help accomplish, 00:12:48.255 --> 00:12:50.740 because they are modes of intervention that will come about 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:54.700 when legislators and policymakers, when taxpayers and citizens, 00:12:54.700 --> 00:12:56.933 agree that that's what we ought to be doing 00:12:56.933 --> 00:12:59.267 and that's how we ought to be spending our money. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:59.267 --> 00:13:01.653 We could be providing early childhood care 00:13:01.653 --> 00:13:07.467 for economically disadvantaged and otherwise troubled kids, 00:13:07.467 --> 00:13:09.850 and we could be doing it for free. 00:13:09.850 --> 00:13:13.960 And we could be nudging kids like Will off of the path that we're on. 00:13:13.960 --> 00:13:17.800 There are other states that do that, but we don't. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:17.800 --> 00:13:21.901 We could be providing special schools, at both the high school level 00:13:21.901 --> 00:13:25.268 and the middle school level, but even in K-5, 00:13:25.268 --> 00:13:29.657 that target economically and otherwise disadvantaged kids, and particularly kids 00:13:29.657 --> 00:13:30.833 who have had exposure 00:13:30.833 --> 00:13:32.933 to the juvenile justice system. 00:13:32.933 --> 00:13:34.800 There are a handful of states that do that; 00:13:34.800 --> 00:13:37.482 Texas doesn't. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:37.482 --> 00:13:39.300 There's one other thing we can be doing -- 00:13:39.300 --> 00:13:41.638 well, there are a bunch of other things that we could be doing -- there's one other thing that we could be 00:13:41.638 --> 00:13:44.200 doing that I'm going to mention, and this is gonna be the only controversial thing 00:13:44.200 --> 00:13:46.833 that I say today. 00:13:46.833 --> 00:13:48.133 We could be intervening 00:13:48.133 --> 00:13:50.233 much more aggressively 00:13:50.233 --> 00:13:53.457 into dangerously dysfunctional homes, 00:13:53.457 --> 00:13:55.300 and getting kids out of them 00:13:55.300 --> 00:14:00.771 before their moms pick up butcher knives and threaten to kill them. 00:14:00.771 --> 00:14:02.791 If we're gonna do that, 00:14:02.791 --> 00:14:04.867 we need a place to put them. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:04.867 --> 00:14:08.271 Even if we do all of those things, some kids are going to fall through the cracks 00:14:08.271 --> 00:14:11.867 and they're going to end up in that last chapter before the murder story begins, 00:14:11.867 --> 00:14:13.900 they're going to end up in the juvenile justice system. 00:14:13.900 --> 00:14:17.002 And even if that happens, 00:14:17.002 --> 00:14:18.906 it's not yet too late. 00:14:18.906 --> 00:14:21.700 There's still time to nudge them, 00:14:21.700 --> 00:14:23.457 if we think about nudging them 00:14:23.457 --> 00:14:25.826 rather than just punishing them. NOTE Paragraph 00:14:25.826 --> 00:14:28.566 There are two professors in the Northeast -- one at Yale and one at Maryland -- 00:14:28.566 --> 00:14:30.333 they set up a school 00:14:30.333 --> 00:14:34.233 that is attached to a juvenile prison. 00:14:34.233 --> 00:14:37.482 And the kids are in prison, but they go to school from eight in the morning 00:14:37.482 --> 00:14:39.167 until four in the afternoon. 00:14:39.167 --> 00:14:40.803 Now, it was logistically difficult. 00:14:40.803 --> 00:14:41.967 They had to recruit teachers 00:14:41.967 --> 00:14:45.333 who wanted to teach inside a prison, they had to establish strict 00:14:45.333 --> 00:14:48.535 separation between the people who work at the school and the prison authorities, 00:14:48.535 --> 00:14:51.967 and most dauntingly of all, they needed to invent a new curriculum because 00:14:51.967 --> 00:14:52.967 you know what? 00:14:52.967 --> 00:14:58.467 People don't come into and out of prison on a semester basis. 00:14:58.467 --> 00:15:01.584 But they did all those things. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:01.584 --> 00:15:04.333 Now what do all of these things have in common? 00:15:04.333 --> 00:15:10.700 What all of these things have in common is that they cost money. 00:15:10.700 --> 00:15:13.728 Some of the people in the room might be old enough to remember 00:15:13.728 --> 00:15:17.490 the guy on the old oil filter commercial. 00:15:17.490 --> 00:15:21.300 He used to say, "Well, you can pay me now 00:15:21.300 --> 00:15:24.367 or you can pay me later." 00:15:24.367 --> 00:15:26.500 What we're doing 00:15:26.500 --> 00:15:28.520 in the death penalty system 00:15:28.520 --> 00:15:32.119 is we're paying later. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:32.119 --> 00:15:33.967 But the thing is 00:15:33.967 --> 00:15:37.833 that for every 15,000 dollars that we spend intervening 00:15:37.833 --> 00:15:42.200 in the lives of economically and otherwise disadvantaged kids 00:15:42.200 --> 00:15:43.520 in those earlier chapters, 00:15:43.520 --> 00:15:47.933 we save 80,000 dollars in crime-related costs down the road. 00:15:47.933 --> 00:15:49.696 Even if you don't agree 00:15:49.696 --> 00:15:52.092 that there's a moral imperative that we do it, 00:15:53.435 --> 00:15:56.012 it just makes economic sense. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:58.589 --> 00:16:02.612 I want to tell you about the last conversation that I had with Will. 00:16:02.612 --> 00:16:06.700 It was the day that he was going to be executed, 00:16:06.700 --> 00:16:11.012 and we were just talking. 00:16:11.012 --> 00:16:12.067 There was nothing left to do 00:16:12.067 --> 00:16:13.682 in his case. 00:16:13.682 --> 00:16:16.033 And we were talking about his life. 00:16:16.033 --> 00:16:18.900 And he was talking first about his dad, who he hardly knew, 00:16:18.900 --> 00:16:19.733 who had died, 00:16:19.733 --> 00:16:22.367 and then about his mom, 00:16:22.367 --> 00:16:24.131 who he did know, 00:16:24.131 --> 00:16:26.300 who is still alive. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:26.300 --> 00:16:29.000 And I said to him, 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.051 "I know the story. 00:16:31.051 --> 00:16:32.867 I've read the records. 00:16:32.867 --> 00:16:35.509 I know that she tried to kill you." 00:16:35.509 --> 00:16:37.947 I said, "But I've always wondered whether you really 00:16:37.947 --> 00:16:40.067 actually remember that." 00:16:40.067 --> 00:16:41.570 I said, "I don't remember anything 00:16:41.570 --> 00:16:43.729 from when I was five years old. 00:16:43.729 --> 00:16:46.667 Maybe you just remember somebody telling you." NOTE Paragraph 00:16:46.667 --> 00:16:49.167 And he looked at me and he leaned forward, 00:16:49.167 --> 00:16:52.767 and he said, "Professor," -- he'd known me for 12 years, he still called me Professor. 00:16:52.767 --> 00:16:56.082 He said, "Professor, I don't mean any disrespect by this, 00:16:56.082 --> 00:16:57.733 but when your mama 00:16:57.733 --> 00:17:00.833 picks up a butcher knife that looks bigger than you are, 00:17:00.833 --> 00:17:04.633 and chases you through the house screaming she's gonna kill you, 00:17:04.633 --> 00:17:08.458 and you have to lock yourself in the bathroom and lean against the door and 00:17:08.458 --> 00:17:11.221 holler for help until the police get there," 00:17:11.221 --> 00:17:14.300 he looked at me and he said, 00:17:14.300 --> 00:17:17.800 "that's something you don't forget." NOTE Paragraph 00:17:17.800 --> 00:17:20.300 I hope there's one thing you all won't forget: 00:17:20.300 --> 00:17:23.156 In between the time you arrived here this morning and the time we break for lunch, 00:17:23.156 --> 00:17:26.567 there are going to be four homicides 00:17:26.567 --> 00:17:28.000 in the United States. 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:32.167 We're going to devote enormous social resources to punishing the people who 00:17:32.167 --> 00:17:34.467 commit those crimes, and that's appropriate, because we should punish 00:17:34.467 --> 00:17:36.533 people who do bad things. 00:17:36.533 --> 00:17:40.100 But three of those crimes are preventable. NOTE Paragraph 00:17:40.100 --> 00:17:43.010 If we make the picture bigger 00:17:43.172 --> 00:17:47.816 and devote our attention to the earlier chapters, 00:17:47.816 --> 00:17:51.200 then we're never going to write the first sentence 00:17:51.200 --> 00:17:52.994 that begins the death penalty story. 00:17:52.994 --> 00:17:54.700 Thank you. 00:17:54.700 --> 00:17:56.031 (Applause)