Free Flat Lake in Winter by Joseph T. Klempner

Hamilton was remanded without bail.

 
    DEATH IS DIFFERENT.
    Those three words, to which Fielder had first been introduced at Death School, have come to form the mantra of the capital defender. When the state makes the decision to kill, that decision immediately and fundamentally transforms the nature of the process from an ordinary one to an extraordinary one. According to some advocates of the death penalty, the transformation arises out of a distinction that is both morally misguided and legally unnecessary, a mistake responsible for the many long, and seemingly endless delays encountered before the meting-out of a punishment that is rooted in biblical tradition, has been authorized by the legislature, approved by the governor, sanctioned by the courts, and continues to be supported by a sizable majority of the public. Nonetheless, this transformation from the ordinary to the extraordinary is recognized by the courts, including a Supreme Court that, even as it has upheld capital punishment against challenges that it is inherently “cruel and unusual,” has insisted that, before an execution may be carried out, exacting standards must be adhered to at every step of the way, from arrest to execution. And in determining on a case-by-case review whether those standards have been met, the justices have time and again taken note of the extreme and irrevocable nature of death as punishment, and have fashioned new yardsticks to measure compliance, adding terms like “heightened due process” and “strict scrutiny” to the lexicon of judicial analysis.
    Exactly when word of this distinction - that death is indeed different - found its way to Cedar Falls, New York, is a bit unclear. As the only sitting judge in the county, Arthur Summerhouse had almost certainly been invited to at least one of several training sessions conducted by the Capital Defender’s Office as early as the summer and fall of 1995. He will not say if he actually attended or not, and the records of those judges who did can no longer be located.
    But by the time Matt Fielder knocked on the door to the judge’s chambers - which was somewhere around two-thirty in the afternoon of the same day as the initial court appearance - he found a somewhat changed man. Perhaps the difference was no more than the one that exists between the public Arthur Summerhouse and the private one: Those who know the judge are quick to point out that as feisty and difficult as he can be on the bench, once out of his robes he is friendly and indeed quite charming. It is also possible that the five-hour interval had provided the judge an opportunity for reflection, giving him sufficient time to realize on his own that it would be prudent to accommodate some of Fielder’s more reasonable concerns. But rumors persist that it was neither of these factors that was responsible for the change, so much as an intervening act: the placement of a private phone call by Judge Summerhouse to a colleague in Rochester who had sat for a time on a capital case the year before until it had been resolved by the defendant’s acceptance of a plea offer to life without the possibility of parole. This colleague, who does not deny the conversation, but has insisted that his name be withheld, appears to have imparted the considerable benefits of his “learning curve” to Judge Summerhouse, explaining in no uncertain terms that the idea behind the game was a simple one: Whenever in doubt, you give the defense pretty much everything it asks for. At the same time, you help out the prosecution only in those ways that aren’t too obvious and heavy-handed. What you’ll end up with is a “clean” conviction and death sentence - one that will be upheld on appeal, all the way up to and including the Supreme Court, where it’s undoubtedly going to wind up, sooner or later.
    By the time Fielder emerged from his meeting with the judge, he was clutching a handful of signed and sealed orders, granting him the