Seeing It Differently

When McKenzie Edwards interviewed for her job at Cleveland Krist, she had one nonnegotiable.

“It was very much, ‘Hi. I’ve got a handful of death penalty clients on Texas’ death row, and if me being able to continue doing work for them is going to be a problem, then this firm will not be a fit,’” the general litigator says.

It turned out to be a good fit: The firm has championed Edwards’ pro bono caseload, which has its roots in a death penalty defense clinic she joined in law school. “The professor gave a stunning presentation of one of the cases and I was like, ‘OK, if this man is telling me the truth, then I don’t think the client deserves to die, and I have serious questions about the system,’” she says.

The questions never stopped; they’ve only gotten bigger and louder. “It seemed like the state tosses the rule book out the window in pursuit of a death penalty conviction for a broader political purpose, or because they were being vindictive, or for what turns out to be just a whole host of other factors,” she says. “It was the arbitrariness of all of it, and how horrible so much of it was. It changed my mind entirely to make me anti-death penalty.”

Of the states that have the death penalty, Texas is currently the leader in executions. “California has the largest death row, but they currently have a moratorium against actual execution,” Edwards says. “Texas is sort of the death row rainmaker, although Ron DeSantis is trying very hard to become that instead.”

A win in Edwards’ world is life. “For most, we’re arguing, ‘This person does not deserve to die, and here is why.’ Almost all of my clients have been sentenced after Texas implemented its life without parole statute, so that’s the best they can get.”

That’s the hope Edwards has for Gabriel Hall, who in 2015 was awaiting trial for murder at Brazos County Detention Center when the jail answered a call from Comedy Central. The network was looking for a jail to use in a special featuring comic Jeff Ross. “He decided he wants to roast inmates, and Brazos was the only jail that said, ‘Come on down,’” Edwards says. “My client’s defense attorneys had a no-contact directive—no one could come in and talk to him without attorneys present. This document is supposed to be good enough for every single jail interaction.”

Except officials let Ross freely talk with Hall, without notice to his attorneys and with cameras rolling. “Jeff Ross asks Gabriel about his crime, and here’s a famous comedian trying to be funny,” Edwards says. “My client made a joke about his crime. And the prison quartermaster is standing right next to Jeff Ross when this happens. As soon as the interview is done, the quartermaster hustles—this is in the record—to the warden’s office to say, ‘They did it. They got him on camera. Subpoena it.’”

“I have serious questions about the system.”

Edwards says the state got the tape, but the defense didn’t even know of its existence until right before a pretrial hearing when the state told the court it intended to use it as evidence that Hall had no remorse. “The defense gets almost no time to review it. [The judge is] like, ‘That seems fine. I don’t see any reason why the no-contact from your attorney should apply here, since Hall talked to Jeff Ross. Use that footage to convict and send him to death row.’ And that is exactly what Texas did.”

SCOTUS denied cert on the matter in January 2023; Edwards says the case will next go to state post-conviction relief.

When asked if people in her life don’t understand why she does this work, her answer is a quick “yes.” And though Edwards spends time churning out articles on death row cases, advocating for better and more transparent Texas Department of Criminal Justice budget, and dreaming up ideas for a nonprofit, she finds it most critical to engage with people.

“I’ll ask, ‘Do you think you should be put to death if you haven’t killed anybody when the Supreme Court has said you have to have killed somebody or else the death penalty is unconstitutional?’ And they’re like, ‘Of course not.’ Well, I know of two people on Texas’ death row who have been convicted because they were in a group of people that committed a crime,” Edwards says. “‘Do you think that the state gets to invite someone into a jail, encourage you to talk to him over your attorneys having already told the state that they can’t do that, and then use what is clearly a comedic conversation to sentence you to death?’ And people are like, ‘Gosh, no.’ Well, that also happened. And so much more. Only when people understand the truth can they start to see it differently.”