Free at last - 27 years on Oklahoma's death row

A tale of ineffective assistance of counsel.  James Fisher (above with a lawyer from equal justice initiative) was freed today after 27 years on death row.  He twice had the wrong lawyer.  Finally courts recognized the travesty.  The first was

"E. Melvin Porter, a civil rights advocate and the first African-American elected to the Oklahoma State Senate, later said that at the time he considered homosexuals to be “among the worst people in the world,” and Mr. Fisher to be a “very hostile client.”

Mr. Porter was shockingly ill-prepared for trial — “unwilling or unable to reveal evident holes in the state’s case,” a federal appellate court later noted, yet “remarkably successful in undermining his own client’s testimony.” He exhibited “actual doubt and hostility” about his client’s defense, the court said, and failed to present a closing argument, even though the state’s case “was hardly overwhelming.”

When the time came at sentencing to plead for mercy, the court said, Mr. Porter uttered just nine words. Four were judicial pleasantries; the remaining five formed a lame objection to the prosecution’s closing argument.

With that, James Fisher, 20, was sentenced to death."

The full story by Dan Barry: This Land - In Rearview Mirror, Oklahoma and a Life on Its Death Row - NYTimes.com