Lee Harbaugh

How the Death Penalty Changed Me: An Introduction

In August of 2011, on the day we buried my mother, I received yet another jury summons. I have always been told that jury summons are random. But if that's true, I should also be the winner of multiple lotteries and jackpots! At this point in my life, I had reported for jury duty probably a dozen times or more. Only once had I been chosen for a jury, and it was for a speeding ticket. Most jury duty experiences were marked by showing up to court, sitting for a few hours while lawyers haggled with one another, and finally being told I was not needed and could go home. This jury duty was different from the beginning.

Never in my wildest imagination could I have foreseen the events that would unfold from this day forward. After trying unsuccessfully to postpone my jury duty, I showed up to court on the required morning in September and was immediately drawn into a capital murder case. On day one, the defense team looked at all the jury candidates from head to toe. We were given a lengthy questionnaire to fill out that took over two hours. Eventually — after months of voir dire (the jury selection process) in which I had to go back to the court numerous times — I was selected to serve on the jury in this case.

I never wanted to serve on a jury. But I was open-minded about the death penalty, and I knew I could objectively weigh evidence. I believe, more than anything else, it was these two factors that led to me being seated on this jury.

In this series of posts, I intend to explore the death penalty from the perspective of a juror who has sentenced a man to die. Some of you may have already read my book Capital Shift. In it, I recount my personal story of being selected to the jury for a capital case in Texas and how we ultimately sentenced Kwame Rockwell to die. These blog posts will enhance and provide a little more detail surrounding the story I tell in that book. My intent is to illuminate many of the troubling truths surrounding capital punishment that most people are not aware of.

Spoiler alert: I went from being someone who favored the death penalty to being someone who never favors it in any situation. This transformation took place in me over a period of many years following my experience with the Kwame Rockwell trial. I don't expect that everyone who reads this will come away convinced we should abolish the death penalty. I do hope everyone will come away having learned something they never knew about capital punishment. As always, I welcome comments.

Death Penalty Blog Series: What to Expect

In this blog series on the death penalty, I will break the posts up into four sections. The first section will focus on my personal journey — why I originally favored the death penalty, when I started to change, and what ultimately led to my shift. The second section will focus on questions I get regularly from readers of my book and attendees of the speeches I give on capital punishment. In the third section, I will delve into the system itself — the criminal justice system, its strengths, its weaknesses, and its biases. Specifically, I will talk about how the inherent weaknesses of the system influence and impact capital cases. Finally, I will explore my own long-term reflections on the criminal justice system and the death penalty and where we may be headed next. I will also reflect on my own internal struggles and triumphs that have come about — and continue to come about — as a result of this experience.

What I truly hope to do is give you a sense of what it's like to sit on a capital jury. Naturally, everyone is different. If you were to ask 100 capital jurors what their experience was like, you'd likely get 100 different answers. Not everyone walks away changing their stance on capital punishment like I did. In fact, to my knowledge, I am the only one from my jury who has changed their stance.

I want to elicit deep thinking and reflection from these posts. To reiterate, my goal isn't to change your mind about anything — that can only come from you. My goal is to get you to think and consider aspects of the death penalty you've likely never considered. If that happens for even one person, I will consider this endeavor a success.

If anything in this post stirred something in you - questions, curiosity, or even discomfort - I invite you to keep exploring with me. This subject is complex. Feel free to share you thoughts and/or questions with me at the link below.