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Former official voice of Texas death row now a defense witness

After serving as TDCJ's public spokesman for Texas' death penalty system for eight years, Larry Fitzgerald switched sides, earning him the label "traitor" from some of his former colleagues along with a new career as an expert witness. The Chicago Tribune has an interesting story today documenting Fitzgerald's new career ("Voice of death testifies for life," June 12) and the blowback its earned him from those on whose behalf he previously spoke. Since he left the state's employ in 2003, he's testified in more than two dozen trials, mostly capital defendants.Fitzgerald's testimony most frequently focuses on the issue of future dangerousness, describing what happens to a prisoner who's convicted of a life sentence. "I needed somebody [who] could speak with firsthand information about how someone convicted of capital murder and sentenced to a life sentence would be handled," one attorney told the Tribune...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on June 12, 2008 (boomark / email).