Bright stood up and approached the podium. “I do think that the issue before us is how the death penalty works in practice,” he began. “I practice in the death belt states of the South—those states with about 16% of our nation’s population, that are responsible for 90% of all the people who’ve been executed in this country. And the evidence is undeniable that the death penalty is a result of race, poverty, politics, and the passions of the moment.”
Beyond highlighting the role of prosecutorial discretion, which could be easily abused, he also emphasized structural conditions: how insufficient resources for the poor meant “we impose the death penalty not for committing the worst crime... We impose the death penalty for having the worst lawyer appointed to your case.” Applause broke out spontaneously. When it subsided, he went on to explain that indigent people are routinely appointed “lawyers that nobody up here, nobody on your side would have represent them in a minor traffic matter—lawyers that Mr. Buckley and Mr. Koch wouldn’t have drive their limousine.”
Bright offered illustrations from his own cases: “Judy Haney[’s] lawyer was so drunk he had to be sent to jail in the middle of a trial!” He said “there’s case after case like that” with people “represented by lawyers who are underpaid, who are incompetent, and who are doing this work because there’s nothing else they can do.” In just a few moments, Bright had crystallized a litany of structural complaints about the justice system.
Buckley interrupted Bright’s momentum. The two men now squared off. Though they both hailed from the South and had ties to Yale, they could not be more different. Buckley, born a Virginian, had been raised in Connecticut and retained an aristocratic air as he disdained the liberalism associated with his undergraduate institution. Bright, the Kentuckian who had never set foot on Yale’s campus until his death penalty work earned him entry to its hallowed halls, maintained his working-class sensibility. One man emphasized the need for social order; the other, the demands of equal justice.
“Do I understand, Professor Bright, that what you’re saying is that the better your lawyer, the better chance you have of getting the guilty guy out? If that’s correct, shouldn’t this be a campaign … to reduce the manipulations that the lawyers can work?”
Bright answered that “these are very complicated cases” and when Buckley needed help with his taxes “you get a tax lawyer to help you.” But poor people facing trial “don’t get to call up Skadden Arps.” Buckley shifted gears: If someone is guilty, “I don’t care about the composition of the jury.” But Bright exploited Buckley’s error. “There’s something to be said for the integrity of the system and the process.”