The very ordinariness of his case was the story. Everyone can deflect responsibility, and someone like Briley can spend the rest of his life in prison.

I thought about how Briley pulled me in, through force of will, and how much it was taking to right this one wrong. Then I listened to my sister represent her client.

The next day, while I waited for Briley outside the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in rural Louisiana, I thought about all the people I couldn’t see who were inside those walls. Some would write more letters to journalists. But how many would have pen pals dedicated enough to make sure those letters were read, or Briley’s ability to build relationships with people who might be able to help? And how many journalists had the time to explore an unlikely story or a sister who was exactly the right lawyer to call? What if the D.A. or the judge had little interest in breathing new life into an old case? Briley got his chance because I opened a letter I almost ignored. I was stung by the capriciousness of all of it. “There are so many other Yuticos sitting in jail,” Jason Williams said in his office that day.

This story began with a letter that Bazelon decided to open after reading an email from a retired librarian. I am still struck by how tackling what first seemed ordinary in the author’s mind turned into so much more.

Williams is a former prosecutor, and when he worked in the district attorney’s office in New Orleans in the 1980s, he was known for keeping a miniature replica of an electric chair on his desk, battery-powered so it jolted at a touch. Fixed to the chair were photos of five men, all Black, whom Williams prosecuted and who were sentenced to death.

This image is making me shiver. A replica of an electric chair with the details described…I don’t think I could ever bear to enter that office if that was the choice of desk decor. It is absolutely haunting.