80% of the condemned during these War on Crime decades could be found in the states that once formed the Confederacy. Additionally, nearly half of those under death sentence across the country were black men--in some states like Texas and Georgia those numbers were more lopsided.

After two years at it, she’d found 86 lawyers for the 89 people on Georgia’s death row. But the volunteer work became exponentially harder. By the end of 1979, the number of people on death row around the country climbed to 570. By 1988, that number swelled to over 2,000.

A wonderful person and one of my heroes. Here she is at the same desk at the ACLU of GA in the summer of 1987 when I was a law student intern working with her and George.

Awesome photo!

From Morris’ obituary: early on, activists on the ground could see what it would take others decades to admit or document: the death penalty was more likely if the defendant was poor or black and the victim was white; geography also mattered.

That trio of lawyers and Patsy Morris stuck with Thomas, who was mentally ill, until the end. They reworked the case from the ground up. I tell the story of the twists and turns in Thomas’s legal battle in @demandtimpossible.bsky.social.

After Thomas was convicted, his lawyer gave a generic argument against the death penalty but presented no evidence to support his plea for mercy. The brief filed in Thomas' appeal was 11-pages long. That was when Morris found Bright, Kendall & Canan to try to rescue him from the electric chair.

Once Thomas proved incapable of assisting in his own defense, his attorney put in little effort. It was as if Thomas had no lawyer at all: his public defender stopped meeting with him, filed no pre-trial motions, and gave a brief opening argument.

It dawned on Bright that the reason there was so little paperwork because Thomas had been quickly tried for an infamous crime and sentenced to death. Thomas rocked back and forth at times and performed a Black Power salute in court.

Bright himself likes to tell the story of how he got involved in death penalty cases by describing his horror at what he saw from the get go. When Thomas’s legal documents showed up at Bright's door, everything fit in a single envelope. He had expected a UHaul with many boxes.

I hope someone writes a full biography of Morris. I was not able to give her life and work as much attention in my book as I would have liked. But the connection that Morris forged when Bright, George Kendall, and Russ Canan agreed to handle Donnie Thomas's case changed legal history.

Morris was unusual in that as a graduate of @vassar.bsky.social and hailing from a privileged background, she threw herself into the major controversies of the day, going where the need was the greatest. This is a recurring theme in the biographies of those who make a mark.

For her work on behalf of poor people facing excecution, Morris was dubbed "Queen of Death Row" by Time Magazine. She passed away in 1997 at the age of 66. There are thousands of people like Morris, unsung volunteers who visit people in prisons and count the costs of mass incarceration.

80% of the condemned during these War on Crime decades could be found in the states that once formed the Confederacy. Additionally, nearly half of those under death sentence across the country were black men--in some states like Texas and Georgia those numbers were more lopsided.

After two years at it, she’d found 86 lawyers for the 89 people on Georgia’s death row. But the volunteer work became exponentially harder. By the end of 1979, the number of people on death row around the country climbed to 570. By 1988, that number swelled to over 2,000.