Lawyers and those alike, have you ever been present in a courtroom and witnessed a case conclude with a death penalty sentence? What was the atmosphere like once capital punishment was decided to be the sentence? Were there any observable reactions in the court room after receiving the news?

My first experience as an attorney in Federal Court followed an appeal from a death row inmate who wanted to ditch his lawyer (who didn't even bother to show) and abandon his appeals, asking that the judge order the State of Mississippi to go ahead and kill him. He'd been on death row for an incredibly long time and had essentially given up, wishing to just get it over with and stop suffering in isolation at Parchman. He'd been writing letters to the Court (and, I suspect, every Court he could) begging to be killed.

The judge explained what he could and could not do, took measures to get the guy new counsel, took his request under advisement and set a new hearing in two weeks with the new counsel.

The judge then called our case for a status hearing on a civil matter. My boss introduced me to the Court and the judge spent the next thirty minutes discussing the burden of incredibly weighty decisions like that. He welcomed me to the practice of law and suggested, since I was new to the case, that we all go to a side room and see if we could reach a settlement on our matter. He noted that he would be unable to hear our motions that day due to the time and that if we couldn't reach an agreement, he'd put us on the calendar in a month or two.

Even that hearing and lecture sucked the air out of the courtroom. I can only imagine the impact of hearing all the testimony of something so terrible that leads to that sort of sentence would do.

/r/law Thread