In his testimony, Gonzales could barely recall details of the notorious Carl Johnson sleeping-lawyer case or the Henry Lee Lucas serial murderer case, one of the most infamous death penalty matters to come before Bush, and one of only two Bush writes about in his autobiography. Yet Gonzales wants us to believe that he was able to keep the critical facts and details of the 57 cases he handled clear in his own mind and convey the crucial arguments in each to Bush without committing a single word -- beyond the eleventh-hour summaries -- to paper.

The written record on executions under Bush is both vast and meticulously cataloged by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, and it suggests just how implausible this claim really is. Records provided by the archives make it shockingly clear that in not one case did Gonzales send Bush a clemency petition, the one document that would have laid out the most forceful argument on behalf of an individual condemned to death. We also know from the archives' own review of the files left behind by Gonzales and his staff that for nearly every inmate executed under Bush, there was voluminous correspondence that never made it to Bush's desk -- correspondence from the Board of Pardons and Paroles, district attorneys, local law enforcement officials, inmates, attorneys for the condemned, and family and friends of victims. "The letters are generally addressed to either the Governor or his General Counsel," a report prepared by the archives state, noting that "while many of the letters are directed to the Governor, they are stamped as received at the General Counsel's office and there is no indication that the Governor reviewed them" (emphasis added).

The archives leave no doubt whatsoever that Gonzales could have provided Bush far more detailed information about each of these executions, but instead chose not to. In the end, Bush made his decisions on each of these life-or-death cases by relying almost entirely on the summaries Gonzales himself now dismisses, acknowledging that they were, at best, incomplete. "What the Governor did review are the execution summaries prepared by the General Counsel," the archives state in an analysis accompanying its "Inventory of the General Counsel's Execution Files." The archives found no other documents that had been reviewed by Bush.

Astonishingly, the archives also make clear that far more complete execution summaries than those prepared by Gonzales were in his possession but were never presented to Bush. These confidential summaries, which have not been made public, were prepared by the Board of Pardons and Paroles or the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. "There is a difference between the execution summaries prepared by the governor's general counsel [Gonzales] and those done by or for the BPP," the archivist states. "The summaries by the BPP contain more information about the crime, the criminal history and the defendant's prison record than do those prepared by the governor's general counsel. Additionally, execution summaries prepared by TDCJ or BPP often contain attachments, including correspondence between the BPP and inmates with victims and inmates' families, correspondence to the BPP from its legal counsel, recommendations from trial officials, medical and psychological reports, and criminal histories."

These more complete summaries, the archives report, were sent to the governor's office along with affidavits, court records and clemency petitions -- none of which Gonzales saw fit to submit to Bush, in all likelihood because Gonzales knew his boss would not be interested in them and had no desire to commute the sentences of anyone on death row.

During the period that Gonzales was handling clemency matters for Bush, there were sometimes as many as two executions per week, as many as eight in a single month. And Bush's top legal advisor would have us believe that the way he and Bush kept track of these executions and ensured that no innocent person died -- and that all of the condemned had had a full and fair review in the courts -- was through a series of informal discussions. That's just not believable.

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