Executioner's Song, The - Norman Mailer [301]
DESERET NEWS
Salt Lake, Nov. 30-The National Coalition Against the Death Penalty, an association of more than 40 national, religious, legal, minority, political and professional organizations, issued a strong statement late Tuesday over the action of the Utah Pardon Board.
"This makes possible the first court-sanctioned homicide in the U.S. in 10 years" the statement noted . . .
Organizations participating in the coalition include the ACLU, the American Ethical Union, The American Friends Service Committee, The American Ortho-Psychiatric Association, The Central Conference of American Rabbis, and others.
Chapter 12
THE GOVERNMENT SERVANT
Earl knew he wouldn't call it admiration, but during the Board of Pardons Hearing, he did get to feel good about the way Gilmore was conducting himself. The man was on a hunger strike, yet his intellect was keen. Dorius was glad to feel something positive. He had lost a great deal of respect when Gilmore tried to commit suicide. All that big dramatic talk about justice, and then the chicken way out. In Dorius's eyes, Gilmore was redeeming himself.
Earl realized how ironic it was. The only thing he and Gilmore had in common was looking to expedite the execution, each for his own reasons. Hardly what you would call a bond. Still, there he was rooting for the man at this hearing as if they were members of the same team. But then, you had to applaud the other guy when he made a really fine play. Of course, Earl supposed his feeling had self-interest. The Gilmore business would probably be the only thing he'd worked on that they might still write about fifty years from now. After Gilmore, sob, sob, my life will be downhill. Truly, it was doubtful he would ever again be so active on a case of national and international concern. People he had met years ago in England on his LDS mission were even beginning to correspond with him again, people he had actually brought into the Church seven and eight years ago. So it had to please Earl that he was the first man in the office to recognize the importance of it all.
He supposed the reason he now took pride in Gilmore was that the convict also respected the situation. It would be disagreeable to work on something this momentous and feel the individual at the very center was nothing but a con artist with shoddy motives.
Gilmore's desire, if genuine, was in line with a few of Earl's own objectives.
In recent years, some of the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court had been saying that the most poorly represented client in the country was state and local government. That teed Earl off personally.
He wanted to improve the image of people who worked in government offices. If he had an ambition, it was not to get into politics, or see his name in lights, but to become known as the best advocate before the Utah Supreme Court. Be an authority on prison law. He wanted to establish a reputation for thorough research and high competence. In fact, if there was a constructive criticism he would make of his work, it was that he tended to research an assignment to death. It killed him to turn in sloppy work. For as long as Gary Gilmore was occupying his working life, therefore, Earl knew he would be putting in fourteen-and fifteen-hour days. Even his kids understood it had to cut into family life. Now, if the children picked up the phone, they could expect half the time to hear a stranger asking for their father.
When he and his wife went to a party, everybody wanted to know the ins and outs. For that matter, Earl didn't mind telling. After all the hard work, it was kind of a fun payment to fill people in on what he was doing. Still, he also tried to get the idea across, as reasonably as possible, that they weren't a gang of boobs over at the A.G.'s. Were actually trying to do a job they could be proud of.
Earl knew better than to announce to the world that he was in the job he wanted, and his work gave him the roots he had always craved. During those years in law school when, to keep his young family afloat, he had had