After a run of high-profile cases where I helped clear people falsely accused of serious violent crimes, I crossed paths with a man headed straight for death row. It was the fall of 1989. The crime was unspeakably cruel. He had not yet been convicted. He begged me to take his case and conduct a defense investigation. The problem was simple and brutal. The evidence against him was overwhelming. He already had a public defender and a full investigative team. His criminal history ran for pages. The media had branded him “The Devil.” That was not hyperbole. That was the headline. He called me from the jail, and later from death row, at least two dozen times. I never treated the calls as an annoyance. I listened every time. My answer never changed. There was nothing to impeach. No loose thread. No unexplored lead. No alternate theory that survived contact with the evidence. I watched his case climb the appellate ladder year after year. Nothing improved. In modern capital litigation, tim...