Mathau plays a lawyer assigned to defend a German prisoner of war who is being framed for murder. Mathau's diligence irks the judge, who reveals that he was chosen for his mediocre reputation and is supposed to lose the case. Mathau wins anyway. Whenever the CCRC lawyers win a case, or are simply seen as trying too hard, they offend a certain low class of Florida legislators who, like the fictional judge, would prefer that they do just enough to satisfy the appearance of due process. If the death penalty is to be trusted to any degree, if it is not to disgrace the people in whose name it is carried out, every element must be fail-safe.
Good defenders are no less essential than good prosecutors, good judges and good cases.
Whoever doubts that is, unwittingly, the best ally that an abolitionist could have. St. Petersburg Times.