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Speaker 1: So my friend worked at the Public Defender and said,

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Speaker 1: you should look into that. These are interesting people. So

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Speaker 1: I interviewed and I was asked how I felt about

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Speaker 1: the death penalty, And at that point I didn't know

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Speaker 1: much about the death penalty, but I said, it seems

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Speaker 1: like a human rights violation to me.

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Speaker 2: This is Kelly Gleeson, one of Krista Pike's attorneys. Her

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Speaker 2: very first death penalty case was the absolutely brutal murder

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Speaker 2: of a six year old woman in a laundromat in Appalachia.

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Speaker 1: I'm at the quiet he was one year younger than

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Speaker 1: me and one year older than my brother. Learned about

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Speaker 1: his life and came to the conclusion, I think the

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Speaker 1: best way to phrase it is, but for the sake

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Speaker 1: of God, there go I this could have been my brother.

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Speaker 1: He looked a little bit there. He's a tall, gangly,

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Speaker 1: skinny guy. But he happened to have schizophrenia. He happened

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Speaker 1: to have had a horrific history of sexual abuse, abandonment

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Speaker 1: by his mother, mental illness in the family. And it

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Speaker 1: seemed important to me that somebody should be advocating for

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Speaker 1: people like that. There's a reason this happened. It's not

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Speaker 1: an excuse. There's a reason it happened. I see you

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Speaker 1: as a human being. I see what you'd have alleged

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Speaker 1: to have done, and if you did it, that doesn't

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Speaker 1: matter to me. I still care about you, and I

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Speaker 1: will fight for you, and we will get the best

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Speaker 1: outcome possible. It's very rewarding to me because it's asking

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Speaker 1: people to trust to reveal the darkest, hardest secrets, the

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Speaker 1: scratches on their heart.

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Speaker 2: In stories involving violent crime, we're accustomed to seeing things

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Speaker 2: through the eyes of a victim, and we give tremendous

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Speaker 2: space to the people who warn them. It's an understandable

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Speaker 2: way of centering the harm that has been done. But

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Speaker 2: the lawyers for people on death row focus on a

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Speaker 2: different main character. They take a wider perspective, insisting that

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Speaker 2: their clients are entitled to their own narrative bibs and

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Speaker 2: that empathy isn't a zero sum game. For most. It

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Speaker 2: starts with developing a kind of intimacy with people who

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Speaker 2: are broadly considered to be the worst of the worst,

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Speaker 2: and being there for them as they inch towards the

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Speaker 2: very final moments of their lives.

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Speaker 3: I've been at the prison for four hours before. I

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Speaker 3: visit certain members of her family quite frequently, so if

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Speaker 3: I've had contact with them, or she's had contact with them,

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Speaker 3: we talk about what those conversations have been like, how

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Speaker 3: they seem to be doing.

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Speaker 2: This is an assent. She's an investigator working on Christa's case.

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Speaker 2: She's tasked with digging up further mitigation evidence, reinterviewing witnesses,

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Speaker 2: and gathering evidence for Christa's clemency petition in the hope

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Speaker 2: that Christa's death sentence can be commuted to life in prison.

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Speaker 2: She also frequently visits with Christa.

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Speaker 3: We talk about current events, we talk about things on TV.

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Speaker 3: We've recently talked a lot about fruit. Her sister has

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Speaker 3: an orchard and picks a lot of fruit, and Christa

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Speaker 3: hears about fruits she never had the opportunity to try

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Speaker 3: on the outside. So the other day we had a

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Speaker 3: conversation about cotton candy grapes because they're one of those

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Speaker 3: weird kind of hybrid fruits. I don't really know how

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Speaker 3: they work, but she'd never heard of them before.

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Speaker 2: It's almost like you're explaining really mundane elements of everyday

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Speaker 2: life that most of us take for granted.

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Speaker 3: It's hard to explain She's never known a life with

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Speaker 3: social media, with TikTok or with Instagram, So trying to

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Speaker 3: just translate these experiences. Yeah, very much that I take

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Speaker 3: for granted. She was telling me one time about a

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Speaker 3: mouse that was in her room and what it was

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Speaker 3: like to feed the mouse Reese's cups. So thinking about

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Speaker 3: that and kind of contrasting that with my day to

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Speaker 3: day life where I have a mouse in my apartment

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Speaker 3: and I'm freaked out and it's terrifying, and she has

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Speaker 3: this immense joy around getting to feed this little pit mouse.

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Speaker 2: Anna sometimes goes to visit Krista with Randy Spivey, one

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Speaker 2: of Krista's lawyers.

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Speaker 4: We'll talk about TV.

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Speaker 3: She loves Gray's Anatomy and they talked to aout Gray's

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Speaker 3: Anatomy all the time, and.

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Speaker 4: I hated going on those visits because I don't want

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Speaker 4: to watch that show. She shares her life with us.

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Speaker 2: This is Steve Ferrell, another of Christa's lawyers.

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Speaker 4: I see all that her intelligence, her social skills, her insight,

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Speaker 4: and I'm just amazed at how that developed in prison,

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Speaker 4: And what I often think about is how that could

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Speaker 4: have been something really effective in her life whatever life

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Speaker 4: she chose to have, and that this whole thing is

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Speaker 4: a tragedy. And I see the lack of parenting, the

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Speaker 4: shuffling back and forth, and say, you lost a diamond.

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Speaker 4: I mean you let something go that could have really

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Speaker 4: been a positive thing in this world.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it sounds like what you're describing as

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Speaker 2: a convicted murderer who's also a people person, which I

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Speaker 2: think is a contradiction that most people would not believe possible.

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Speaker 4: Yes, although I have to say that over the years

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Speaker 4: I've met a lot of them, and it's a cliche,

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Speaker 4: but when we judge someone's humanity based on one awful

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Speaker 4: thing that they did and throw away the rest, sometimes

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Speaker 4: you throw away, you know, something really valuable.

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Speaker 2: I'm Sarah Trelevan and this is Unrestorable, Season two Proof

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Speaker 2: of Life, an original podcast from Anonymous Content and iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 5: There is a dehumanization that takes place in the cases

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Speaker 5: of all capital defendants.

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Speaker 2: Sandra Babcock, a law professor at Cornell University and expert

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Speaker 2: in women and the death penalty, says that most people

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Speaker 2: who end up on death row undergo a process of

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Speaker 2: dehumanization by the community, in the media and in the

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Speaker 2: core room.

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Speaker 5: There is an effort by the prosecution to rupture that

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Speaker 5: human bond that we feel with other members of our species.

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Speaker 5: I think the idea of being party to the intentional

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Speaker 5: taking of human life is very difficult for many people.

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Speaker 5: And to get jurors on board with the idea that

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Speaker 5: they are responsible for taking human life, prosecutors have to

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Speaker 5: convince them that the person who's sitting in front of

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Speaker 5: them isn't truly fully human the way they are.

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Speaker 2: With women, that narrative often takes on additional meaning.

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Speaker 5: It's not just that they aren't fully human, they aren't

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Speaker 5: fully women. They don't possess the characteristics that are stereotypically

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Speaker 5: associated with women, passivity, a peaceable nature, empathy, care for

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Speaker 5: their children and for other people in their lives. Prosecutors,

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Speaker 5: in addition to dehumanizing women, they try to defeminize them.

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Speaker 5: Usually they do it by injecting gendered tropes and stereotypes.

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Speaker 5: So a lot of times they will talk about how

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Speaker 5: they are unnaturally violent. Sometimes they will talk about their

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Speaker 5: sexual nature and that they have you know, multiple partners,

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Speaker 5: or that they are you know, sexually promiscuous. In the

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Speaker 5: case of you know, young women that they're manipulative, that

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Speaker 5: they're scheming, that they're devious. These are all very highly

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Speaker 5: sort of gendered stereotypes about women that harken back for centuries,

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Speaker 5: and they're still used today.

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Speaker 2: Over the years, podcasts, books, and TV shows about Christa

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Speaker 2: have had titles like She Devil and Satanic Betrayal. Earlier

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Speaker 2: this year, Krista was featured on an episode of the

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Speaker 2: series Mean Girl Murders. Part of the job of a

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Speaker 2: capital defense lawyer is to rewrite that story, to grab

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Speaker 2: control of a client's narrative and try to cast them

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Speaker 2: in a different light. That process can be formal and deliberate.

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Speaker 2: When I first reached out to Christa's legal team, I

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Speaker 2: did it through a website, Mercyforkrista dot org. It was

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Speaker 2: created in partnership with a PR firm in Tennessee, part

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Speaker 2: of a communication strategy to try to influence public opinion

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Speaker 2: about who Christa is and what she deserves. Some capital

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Speaker 2: lawyers even hire filmmakers to create short videos about their

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Speaker 2: clients in a bid to demonstrate that they're deserving of mercy,

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Speaker 2: but much of the process also seems to develop organically

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Speaker 2: and highly personally, as capital defenders spend time getting to

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Speaker 2: know their clients, often over a period of years, seeing

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Speaker 2: in them a goodness or at least complexity that few

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Speaker 2: others can or want to see.

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Speaker 6: On this particular picture, the one I'm looking at, or

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Speaker 6: the one Molly has up is the first one to

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Speaker 6: the left, which is former clients?

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Speaker 4: Or would you rather talk about current clients as opposed

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Speaker 4: to former or go ahead? Sorry, I was just going to.

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Speaker 7: Say, should we also start with an overview of like

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Speaker 7: this is our wall of clients that we represent in.

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Speaker 2: This is Steve Ferrell and Molly Kincaid, Christa's Knoxville based attorneys.

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Speaker 2: When Beth Carris and I visited Knoxville in August twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty four, I was drawn to three corkboards mounted on

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Speaker 2: the wall of their office. They're lined with polaroids of

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Speaker 2: thirty eight of their current and former clients, most smiling

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Speaker 2: and wearing an institutional blue uniform or white T shirt,

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Speaker 2: all convicted of awful things. Christa is the only woman.

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Speaker 4: We generally represent these people for long periods of time,

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Speaker 4: and often intense periods of time, so there are very

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Speaker 4: few of them that we forget, you know, and that's

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Speaker 4: why it's good to have their picture up because we

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Speaker 4: think of them and we talk about their cases. I mean,

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Speaker 4: just looking at these pictures, I do think it's just

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Speaker 4: really interesting to get to know these people as complex

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Speaker 4: human beings. Because there is that whole idea of good

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Speaker 4: versus evil, which is what death row is based on.

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Speaker 4: It you're so evil, you don't deserve to be in

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Speaker 4: this world is so inaccurate, because every one of these people,

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Speaker 4: even if we assume they did the act that they did,

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Speaker 4: and that is certainly not always true, but even if

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Speaker 4: you assume that they are complex individuals, particularly those that

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Speaker 4: have been on death row some of them. I can

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Speaker 4: see one who's been on death throw for almost forty years.

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Speaker 4: You can't put his entire existence down to one bad act.

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Speaker 2: I asked them to tell me some of the stories

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Speaker 2: of the other people they represent.

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Speaker 7: So I represent Isaiah Patterson, who's on the bottom row

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Speaker 7: in the middle, and he's on death row in Arizona.

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Speaker 2: Isaiah Patterson was sentenced to death in two thousand and

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Speaker 2: nine for the fatal stabbing of his girlfriend, Consquelo Barker.

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Speaker 7: He's seventy eight years old and he's in pretty good health.

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Speaker 7: He's a very jovial client to be around. He gets

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Speaker 7: along with everybody on the team. He also works really

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Speaker 7: hard at his job cleaning showers in the prison.

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Speaker 4: He's very religious.

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Speaker 7: What's interesting about his background is because of his age

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Speaker 7: and growing up in Mississippi. It was actually during the

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Speaker 7: Jim Crow era and he was raised sharecropping. He did

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Speaker 7: share cropping picking cotton, and you know, in this environment

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Speaker 7: of racial discrimination that was extremely terrorizing to black people

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Speaker 7: in Mississippi at the time. He also had very serious

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Speaker 7: mental illness in his family. His mother was schizophrenic and

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Speaker 7: committed to the Mississippi State Hospital.

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Speaker 4: So he grew up with.

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Speaker 7: A lot of abandonment. He had a lot of odds

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Speaker 7: stacked against him as a young person. I mean almost

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Speaker 7: none of that was presented at his trial, and so

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Speaker 7: the jury did not get a real.

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Speaker 4: Impression of who he was as a person.

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Speaker 2: In general, when you go in to meet clients, do

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Speaker 2: you find it's fairly easy to build a rapport?

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Speaker 7: I think a lot of times by the time people

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Speaker 7: get Habe as counsel, they can be under standably very

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Speaker 7: tired of talking to lawyers who haven't been able to

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Speaker 7: help them. It's one of those things where it's a

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Speaker 7: lot of social work in addition to legal work, dealing

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Speaker 7: with a family communication, like getting family photos for them.

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Speaker 7: They really appreciate things like that, and in fact, sometimes

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Speaker 7: that's more powerful to them than the actual legal work

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Speaker 7: that you're doing on their case.

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Speaker 4: When you work with somebody for almost twenty years, you

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Speaker 4: can't have conversations where I pretend that I am lawyer

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Speaker 4: and that is it. I feel like you can't expect

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Speaker 4: your clients to be sharing lots of intimate information if

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Speaker 4: you're not willing to share the basics that everyone in

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Speaker 4: this office knows about me. You know, kind of where

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Speaker 4: I live, in, what kind of my family situation, Who

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Speaker 4: are some of my friends. Steve West always wanted me

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Speaker 4: to send him a postcard everywhere I went on vacation.

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Speaker 2: Stephen Michael West was executed in the electric chair in

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Speaker 2: twenty nineteen for torturing and murdering a woman and her

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Speaker 2: teenage daughter.

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Speaker 4: I thought, well, what does that hurt for him to

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Speaker 4: kind of think about what it would be like to

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Speaker 4: go to this place. I've known a number of clients

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Speaker 4: who became model citizens. I think in particular of Nick Sutton.

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Speaker 2: Nick Sutton is on the bottom row of one of

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Speaker 2: the corkboards, third from the right. He has short hair

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Speaker 2: and a gray and goatee. In his picture, he looks

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Speaker 2: genuinely happy. Nick was incarcerated for triple homicide at eighteen,

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Speaker 2: but he wasn't on death row, and then at twenty one,

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Speaker 2: someone inside sold him some bad weed, so.

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Speaker 4: He asked for a refund on his bad weed. In response,

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Speaker 4: the seller issued a death threat, said he was going

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Speaker 4: to kill Nick Sutton, and on the day Nick Sutton

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Speaker 4: actually killed him. The prison was so understaffed there wasn't

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Speaker 4: even a guard on the pod, no one. The inmates

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Speaker 4: were literally in charge. He should not have been sentenced

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Speaker 4: to death and he should have been granted habeas relief.

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Speaker 4: But the hard thing with him was that he had

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Speaker 4: committed three murders before going to death row, so that

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Speaker 4: was probably what was working against him. Like forty nine,

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Speaker 4: I think he had become the model inmate.

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Speaker 7: You know, he.

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Speaker 4: Was the prison handyman, so he used to go around

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Speaker 4: with tools and had just an impeccable prison record. He

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Speaker 4: had completely reformed himself from his youthful days. He finds spirituality.

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Speaker 4: He gets married to a woman on the outside who's

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Speaker 4: very religious, and it seemed to have a very strong bond.

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Speaker 4: If Nick said don't do such and such, I think

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Speaker 4: most people didn't do it. And he didn't use his

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Speaker 4: influence in negative ways. He used it to keep order.

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Speaker 4: He saved the life of a guard during a riot,

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Speaker 4: and yet we executed him.

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Speaker 5: That's not how I thought that story was going to end.

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Speaker 5: I thought you were going to say he got clemency

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Speaker 5: for saving the guard's life.

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Speaker 4: No. No, Nick got the electric chair.

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Speaker 2: Because of the protracted appeals process, inmates can spend decades

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Speaker 2: on death row. It's not uncommon for the state to

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Speaker 2: ultimately issue a death warrant long after someone has reached

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Speaker 2: their senior years, their body ravaged by the impacts of

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Speaker 2: long term incarceration. Kelly Gleeson says that she sometimes has

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Speaker 2: to lead clients through grim motions as an execution date approaches.

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Speaker 1: You know, around the thirty day mark, the warden will

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Speaker 1: want to meet with the client with you present and

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Speaker 1: have the client choose a method of execution, so waive

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Speaker 1: their right to die in one way and choose the

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Speaker 1: other way. So the choice that Lee had was the

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Speaker 1: electric chair or lethal injection.

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Speaker 2: Lee Hall spent almost twenty years in prison, from murdering

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Speaker 2: his estranged girlfriend, and death row inmates who were sentenced

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Speaker 2: up to a certain point in the late nineties get

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Speaker 2: to choose their manner of death.

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Speaker 1: When we first started representing him, he could walk on

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Speaker 1: his own. By this time he had to have an

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Speaker 1: escort because he could not see. And my co counselor

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Speaker 1: and I went to the prison with the form to

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Speaker 1: meet with Lee, the warden and several other people. We

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Speaker 1: go and sit down with Lee. The current warden was

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Speaker 1: wearing a suit, and you know, mister Hall, we're here

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Speaker 1: for this purpose. Your lawyers are going to go over

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Speaker 1: the form. I was having a very hard time with

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Speaker 1: the whole situation and was looking around at these people

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Speaker 1: and I'm hoping I could associate. And my co counsel

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Speaker 1: read the form to Lee, and then he had to

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Speaker 1: take his hand and move it to where the signature

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Speaker 1: line was, you know, to place it correctly, and he

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Speaker 1: placed it slightly wrong, so we kind of had to

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Speaker 1: start over. And a blind man signed his name poorly

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Speaker 1: because he couldn't see very well that he wanted to

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Speaker 1: die in the electric chair. He wanted to waive his

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Speaker 1: right to die by lethal injection, and he died in

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Speaker 1: the electric chair.

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Speaker 4: One of the worst moments that I have to go

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Speaker 4: through is to tell somebody it's over. You are going

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Speaker 4: to die in a short of some miracle or God

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Speaker 4: forbid a botch. You are going to die in a

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Speaker 4: couple hours.

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Speaker 2: Right up until those two hours, you are looking for

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Speaker 2: any possible legal exit to what is it that to happen.

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Speaker 4: Yes, and there's someone at the US Supreme Court that

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Speaker 4: we call the death clerk. I'm sure they have some

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Speaker 4: other title, but as you're going through and you're exhausting

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Speaker 4: these claims, this death clerk will be communicating with you

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Speaker 4: and what they want. I remember the last one. She said,

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Speaker 4: can you have that to me within a half an hour,

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Speaker 4: because if you get it to me within a half

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Speaker 4: an hour, everyone who needs to get it will get it.

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Speaker 4: We were getting near rush hour, and she was afraid

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Speaker 4: that if I didn't get it to her within a

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Speaker 4: half an hour, some of these people might be stuck

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Speaker 4: in traffic or something.

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Speaker 2: And that paperwork getting it in before the justices get

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Speaker 2: in their cars for a rush hour, that is can

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Speaker 2: be the line between life and death.

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Speaker 4: Yes, when I'm talking to a judge or a governor,

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Speaker 4: I try to convey that humanity, and all they're looking

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Speaker 4: at is some awful set of facts that may or

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Speaker 4: may not be accurate. But even if accurate, and even

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Speaker 4: if as bad as you think, that's still a person

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Speaker 4: that you are going to execute, and their humanity is

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Speaker 4: manifest when you talk to them, when you deal with them,

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Speaker 4: even in difficult moments. It's in moments like that that

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Speaker 4: I wish people that say you deserve to die could see.

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Speaker 4: I wish they could see that because no one deserves

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Speaker 4: to die. We all have to die, but no one

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Speaker 4: deserves to be told you'll be dead in two hours,

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Speaker 4: without exception. They comfort me, without exception. At the very

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Speaker 4: moment we are denying their humanity, they are showing humanity.

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Speaker 2: You've attended executions previously, yes, can you tell me what

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Speaker 2: those final moments are like?

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Speaker 4: So the first one was in Ohio. It was a

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Speaker 4: lethal injection, and it was back in two thousand and four.

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Speaker 4: Some journalists had litigated the right to access to see

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Speaker 4: the strapping down and the insertion of the needle, and

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Speaker 4: so we were seeing on a screen. Those of us

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Speaker 4: in the witness room were seeing that happening on a screen,

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Speaker 4: and particular client fought and screamed. We had no audio,

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Speaker 4: but I could see he was screaming and fighting, and

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Speaker 4: then suddenly it just stopped because the drugs went in.

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Speaker 4: I assume it's the paralytic, and then suddenly it was over.

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Speaker 4: And then the other one was in Tennessee Nick Sutton,

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Speaker 4: and it was the electric chair. I knew what to

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Speaker 4: look for, and I was transfixed on watching for those things.

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Speaker 4: It should be maybe a metaphysical moment where I'm seeing

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Speaker 4: the actual death of someone, but I'm watching for a

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Speaker 4: botched execution. And it's only afterwards that I kind of think, wow,

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Speaker 4: I just saw that.

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Speaker 2: Steve says that the most challenging execution of a client

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Speaker 2: was one he couldn't attend because of COVID.

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Speaker 4: So I'm alone up in my son's bedroom, which has

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Speaker 4: become my office, and he was supposed to be executed

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Speaker 4: at three pm, and there was a delay that we

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Speaker 4: don't know why, and my co counsel and I were

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Speaker 4: on the phone together with him making small talk for

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Speaker 4: an hour and a half and I kept thinking, God,

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Speaker 4: I want this call to end, and then I'd say, no,

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Speaker 4: when this call ends, it's because it's over. And so

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Speaker 4: we talked, and we talked, and some friends from the

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Speaker 4: office came over with beer and pizza when they thought

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Speaker 4: it was going to be and I'm like, you know,

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Speaker 4: go out on the.

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Speaker 5: Deck wait for me.

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Speaker 4: I don't know how long it'll be. And then finally

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Speaker 4: he just said, oh, they're here. I guess this is goodbye,

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Speaker 4: and that was it. And stuff like that to me

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Speaker 4: is much more traumatic than sitting in the witness room.

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Speaker 1: I do think secondary trauma's a very real in this job.

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Speaker 1: Folks can do this for a year or less and

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Speaker 1: realize it's not for them, and it does take a lot.

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Speaker 1: That's why I go traveling. I went to Portugal last

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Speaker 1: year for three weeks, my first time there. I loved

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Speaker 1: it absolutely. Self care is very important when you're doing

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Speaker 1: this work. Self awareness, managing boundaries with people who are

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Speaker 1: very damaged at times could become an issue. So it's

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Speaker 1: not easy sometimes, but I have the strength to do

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Speaker 1: it and my clients mean the world to me, and

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Speaker 1: so it is such a privilege and an honor to

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Speaker 1: be able to be an advocate for Krista. It really is.

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Speaker 2: If Krista is executed, will you be there?

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Speaker 1: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: I mean I think that's part of our job to

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Speaker 4: be there if they want us there, if that's of

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Speaker 4: a benefit, and if we're not prevented by some other obligation,

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Speaker 4: and by that it's usually litigating something were them that

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Speaker 4: you can't be in the prison and typing on your

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Speaker 4: computer at the same time. And so for Christa, I

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Speaker 4: don't think about it because to me, that's a question

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Speaker 4: that would happen at that time, if it happened, and

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Speaker 4: would depend on what she wanted and what was best

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Speaker 4: for her.

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Speaker 1: If Krista wanted me there for some reason, I think

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Speaker 1: she probably would never ask me. I'd have to seriously

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Speaker 1: consider it. But in my mind, it is a murder.

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Speaker 1: It's the worst kind of premeditated murder.

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Speaker 2: As Christa's lawyers press on in their efforts to overturn

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Speaker 2: her death sentence to explain to the world that she

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Speaker 2: does not deserve to die, they face an uphill battle,

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Speaker 2: and not just in the courts, many still see her

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Speaker 2: execution as the ultimate form of justice.

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Speaker 4: Actually, to be honest, I wanted to just go ahead

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Speaker 4: and kill her like she did my daughter.

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Speaker 2: That's next time on Proof of Life. Unrestorable is executive

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Speaker 2: produced and hosted by me Sarah Tulevin and Beth Carris,

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Speaker 2: Mixing and sound design by Reza Daiya for Anonymous content.

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Speaker 2: Jessica Grimshaw is our executive producer, Jennifer Sears is our

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Speaker 2: executive in charge of production, and Nicole Pronk is our

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Speaker 2: legal counsel. For iHeart executive producer Christina Everett and supervising

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Speaker 2: producer Abu Zafar