In a recent inter­view, Judge Michael A. Ponsor, who presided over the first fed­er­al death penal­ty tri­al in Massachusetts in over 50 years, warned that the death penal­ty comes with a ​“heavy price” — the risk of exe­cut­ing inno­cent peo­ple: ​“A legal regime per­mit­ting cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment comes with a fair­ly heavy price.…where there’s a death penal­ty inno­cent peo­ple will die. Sooner or lat­er — we hope not too often — some­one who didn’t com­mit the crime will be exe­cut­ed.” In 2001, Judge Ponsor over­saw the cap­i­tal tri­al of Kristen Gilbert, a nurse who was charged with killing some of her patients. Gilbert was ulti­mate­ly found guilty and sen­tenced to life with­out parole. The judge said the tri­al made him ques­tion the whole process of death sen­tenc­ing: ​“The most pro­found real­iza­tion I took from Gilbert was that human beings get­ting togeth­er to decide whether some­one should be exe­cut­ed, even when they are super­vised by a judge, will make mistakes.”

Ponsor recent­ly wrote a nov­el, The Hanging Judge, that tells the fic­tion­al sto­ry of a cap­i­tal tri­al in which the judge strug­gles to ensure the defen­dant receives a fair tri­al. The sub­plot of his book is the true sto­ry of two Irishmen who were wrong­ful­ly exe­cut­ed in 1806. ​“We like to con­sole our­selves that the injus­tices of the past no longer occur in our coun­try in the 21st cen­tu­ry,” the judge said. Yet the hang­ing of Dominick Daley and James Halligan, two inno­cent vic­tims of vir­u­lent anti-Catholic big­otry in 1806, has its par­al­lels today. The peo­ple exe­cut­ed are most often the friend­less, tar­gets of prej­u­dice and fear…The defen­dant in my nov­el, Clarence ​‘Moon’ Hudson, a young African-American man with a crim­i­nal record and an intim­i­dat­ing face, shares some of the same vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties Daley and Halligan suffered.”

(M. Valencia, ​“Judge’s fic­tion­al account gives inside view of death penal­ty tri­al,” Boston Globe, November 12, 2014). See New Voices and Innocence.

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