Word: rows
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...hours of someone's time and work for no pay. The people she is telephoning are lawyers; her "clients" have all been condemned to death. Thanks in large part to Morris' more than two years of dedicated work, only three of Georgia's 89 death row inmates lack a lawyer, at the moment, to help pursue every available legal remedy in the quest to avoid the electric chair...
Dubbed the Queen of Death Row by one appreciative convict, Morris, 49, a mother of four and a staunch opponent of capital punishment, is death penalty coordinator for the Georgia affiliate of the A.C.L.U. She normally does not start hunting for lawyers until after the defendant has been convicted and his automatic appeal has gone to the state supreme court. Once that appeal has been heard, the state no longer has an obligation to provide a lawyer, leaving most of the condemned on their own if they wish to seek post-conviction remedies in state and federal courts; most lack...
...time and energy," as the A.C.L.U.'S Henry Schwarzschild describes it-is no easy task. "It's so desperate you take whom you can get," explains Morris. Indeed, the shortage of qualified attorneys threatens to overwhelm Morris and others like her because the nation's death row population, now totaling some 570, is climbing by almost 100 people a year.* Eighty percent of the prisoners mark their time in the states of the Old Confederacy; Georgia has the largest number per capita in the country. While most welcome legal help, there are exceptions: in Georgia, convicted murderer...
Morris shares the limelight in the Georgia death penalty struggle with Millard Farmer, 45, who heads Team Defense, a money-starved Atlanta organization that represents about 10% of the state's death row prisoners. As his three criminal contempt citations indicate, Farmer pulls no punches in the courtroom. Once, while defending a black charged with killing a white police chief, Farmer's effort to have an impartial judge preside over the trial led to the disqualification of five judges. The prosecuting attorney was so upset that he burned one of his law books. "I don't have...
Meanwhile, the air was suddenly filled with falling gymnasts. Three Soviet women in a row lost their grip and crashed to the mats while competing on the uneven bars. From then on, they played it conservatively, eliminating some of the more difficult tricks in the floor exercises in hopes of staying on their feet. The Rumanians charged ahead. Emilia Eberle, 15, heiress-apparent to Nadia's throne, reeled off a dazzling floor exercise; Melita Ruhn whistled through a difficult and risky performance on the uneven parallel bars. When the totals were in, the Rumanians had edged out the Soviets...