A Letter on a Lawyer's Life of Death
104 Pages Posted: 17 Oct 2010
Date Written: 1997
Abstract
"Death," the late Stanley Elkin once said, "is an education." I have had to become something of a connoisseur of death and a predator of experience. For the past decade or so, I have been an appellate lawyer for people who are condemned to die. In addition to writing legal briefs, memoranda, and other forms of advocacy, I have written several "scholarly" articles and essays for law reviews, as well as two books which may also, I suppose, be characterized fairly as "scholarly" work products. Although I try to disguise neither my personality nor my personal beliefs in the earlier works, those enterprises more or less more or less conform to the norms and convention of intellectual "rigor"-and stylistic rigor mortis-that characterize scholarship by legal academics. At least,"scholarship" was my intent in my previous law journal articles and books. They did contain many footnotes, at any rate.
Keywords: Death, Advocacy, Death Penalty
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