Yet -- precisely because our gut tells us that such criminals are dispensable -- those charged with clemency have a special obligation to explore the possibility that maybe, just maybe, one of these offenders might have had serious mental problems, a childhood replete with abuse, or an attorney as cavalier about his commitment to justice as Gonzales himself. The fundamental question raised by the extraordinary record of clemency denial under Bush is whether those with the power of clemency have any moral obligation whatsoever to at least contemplate the arguments made by death row inmates in a final appeal for life. An examination of the Gonzales memos strongly suggests that his answer would be no. It is, in fact, difficult to define precisely what factors, other than the kind of intense media and political pressure brought to bear in the case of Karla Faye Tucker, might have sparked his curiosity and led to a more serious discussion of any one case.

Gonzales' execution summaries demonstrate that while Bush was paying lip service to his moral obligations in the clemency process, both he and Gonzales had turned that process into little more than a charade. In practice, none of the traditional grounds for executive clemency -- such as mental incompetence, childhood physical or sexual abuse, remorse, rehabilitation, racial discrimination by the state or by jurors, incompetent counsel, or disproportionate sentences for co-defendants -- was seriously considered by either Gonzales or Bush.

Gonzales' memos illustrate time and again how he and Bush thoroughly neutered the purpose of clemency, designed as an extrajudicial process, by assuming that if the courts had approved an execution, there was no role for the governor. Gonzales' summaries routinely end with a conclusion that demonstrates how the "fail-safe" final review Bush had promised constituted no review whatsoever other than to certify that the case had passed through all the courts. But that requirement was, in fact, satisfied by definition: A case would not come up for executive clemency unless all other appeals had been denied.

In the final analysis, the only ground for clemency under the Gonzales-Bush "fail-safe" was evidence of innocence. And even then, Gonzales seemed asleep at the wheel. Consider the matter of David Wayne Stoker, who was executed for murdering convenience store clerk David Manrique in a 1986 robbery that netted $96. Gonzales, a Harvard-educated lawyer, summarized the substantive issues in this vicious, stereotypically "pointless" crime in a grand total of 18 lines. Had Gonzales been willing to expend just a little more ink on this matter of life and death, here are some of the things he might have mentioned to the governor: For starters, he might have pointed out that a federal appellate judge concluded that the state's star witness against Stoker was just as likely the murderer. He might have noted that a key state witness recanted following Stoker's conviction, explaining that he'd been pressured by the prosecution to perjure himself. He might have mentioned that the state's star witness received a financial reward for fingering Stoker and had felony drug and weapons charges dropped the day he testified against Stoker -- raising the obvious possibility that he had had a motive for accusing Stoker.

But that's not all. Gonzales apparently didn't think his boss needed to know that this star witness and two police witnesses lied under oath at trial, that the state's expert medical witness pleaded guilty to seven felonies involving falsified evidence in capital murder trials, and that the state's expert psychiatric witness, whose testimony provided the jury with a legal basis for handing down a death sentence, never bothered to interview Stoker. By the time Gonzales was supposedly researching the case for Bush, this expert had been expelled from the American Psychiatric Association for repeatedly providing unethical testimony in murder cases. Needless to say, Gonzales didn't think it was worth pointing out that the jury that had sentenced Stoker to death was ignorant of all those facts.

Would Bush have opted to execute Stoker even if Gonzales had given him all of that mitigating evidence? Probably, given all we know about his record on clemency. Nonetheless, the case raises important questions about a lawyer's moral obligation to keep his client adequately informed, as well as that lawyer's basic sense of fairness and decency. Senators might want to ask themselves if they would have been willing to execute Stoker based on Gonzales' 18-line summary. Alternatively, would they have executed him knowing the facts Gonzales failed to include? Finally, they might ponder whether Bush, relying on Gonzales, executed an innocent man.

A first-year law student preparing a brief for his client such as the one Gonzales wrote up on the Stoker case would probably be advised to consider another line of work. But not Gonzales. Bush, who would later make "character" the mantra of his first presidential campaign, was apparently more than happy with the Reader's Digest Condensed work product offered up by his lawyer. In his autobiography, Bush wrote that for every death case, the office of legal counsel would "brief me thoroughly, review the arguments made by the prosecution and defense, raise any doubts or problems or questions." Bush promoted Gonzales to the office of the Texas secretary of state, to the Texas Supreme Court and finally to White House counsel's position.

Legal ethicists may argue that the client calls the shots and that the president should have the attorney he is comfortable with. The question the Senate must now confront is whether Gonzales is the right attorney for the rest of the country.

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