How can life be money? Is there a country where money can be put in one tray of the scale and human life in the other tray? I know Justice is blind, but this has nothing to do with impartiality. It is just not seeing! Does such a country exist? Yes it does. It is the USA!
For instance, when you are on trial for murder, most of the time it is not because you are rich, wealthy and happy! The USA doesn't live under the standards of Lieutenant Colombo's inquiries! There are exceptions, of course, and O. J. Simpson just showed us the best one, but not when you are poor and on trial for murder, or even worse when you have already been condemned to death, and you are getting in the appeals process.
For example, in Texas and in about 20 other states there used to be lawyers working pro bono in the Texas Resource Center. When, for financial reasons they disappeared, nothing replaced these institutions. Death Row prisoners get appointed attorneys to help them through this complicated legal process--appointed by the State, so the State pays for the prosecution, pays for the judge, pays for the defense! Don't worry, we are not in China. The State will also pay for the lethal injection "medicine." So the State provides everything! The main problem when you get an appointed attorney is that most of the time these attorneys are forced to handle these death row cases in which they have no special interest and sometimes no real competency! It is not an easy job for inexperienced lawyers to go through the Court of Criminal Appeals to see if the trial was properly conducted! It is not an easy job for the same inexperienced lawyer to go next through filing writs of Habeas Corpus to make sure that the constitutional rights of the death-sentenced prisoner have been upheld.
Where is the money problem in all that, you are probably going to ask? Why is Life money, Frenchie? Because the Court will pay up to $100 per hour for a maximum of 75 hours. If the lawyer needs more time he's got to ask for special Court approval. For a single writ, it usually requires 150 or 200 hours, as estimated by one Deputy Clerk. Is it possible to pay experts? Actually, during the trial process, aren't they the decisive part of it? The real fight is dependent on legal talent when some private attorneys are requiring up to $75,000 or $100,000 to handle one death row file!
And what if you are a busy lawyer, or even worse if you have no interest or willingness to handle death row prisoners' cases? Most of the time, these cases are not easy ones. You don't receive any "honor" for defending criminals. You don't get paid as much as other cases, and on top of that, if you are not interested in such cases, which require real personal involvement, do you really think that you will be able to do a good job for your client?
If you want to do this job with the minimum efficiency, is it possible when the writs have to be filed within 180 days and you have other cases waiting on your desk? And if you have more than one death row case to handle, how can you do that properly?
When the defendant has his life in one tray of the scale and his lawyer willing and experienced in the other one, is he defended properly when he learns that his lawyer has never argued a death row case and is totally inexperienced in that specialized practice? Is it fair that O. J. Simpson with all his money could afford a nine- months trial with a "dream team" and that others don't have lawyers or they have someone who has never seen them, and discover the face of their lawyer when the trial begins? Can this really be named "Justice"? Can this be considered a fair trial? Is this really what Democracy and Law require? I don't think so.
Without a doubt, time can be considered by certain people as money, but if human life is considered worthless, it is because, as a French poet put it, it is priceless! Even if death row prisoners represent a minority of the far too large number of prisoners incarcerated in the USA, even if death row prisoners don't vote, even if they don't pay taxes, even if they sometimes work as slaves, even if they are considered non-human, THEIR LIFE IS A HUMAN LIFE! I think even people in favor of the death penalty have to admit that anyone, rich or poor, deserves a fair trial.
And how can a trial be fair without good and honest representation?
Dr. Pierre Duterte works in a French association taking care of refugees, victims of torture or repression in their homeland. He writes to death-row prisoners and prisoners in general population in a number of states in the U.S. He has been to the Texas death row twice.