Transcript: Senate Judiciary Committee Confirmation Hearing (for Author of Tortue Memos)

The New York Times > Washington > Transcript: Senate Judiciary Committee Confirmation Hearing:

..."SEN. FEINGOLD: On that point, one of the case involved, an inmate on death row named Carl Johnson. He was executed in September 1995, during the first year that Governor Bush was in office and you were his counsel on these matters. Mr. Johnson was represented by a lawyer named Joe Cannon, who slept through the major portions of the trial, and who was apparently notorious in legal circles for this behavior. In his challenges appealing the trial conviction, Mr. Johnson argued consistently that he had had ineffective assistance of counsel, primarily based on the sleeping lawyer who represented him at trial. In your memo to the governor discussing this case and impending execution, however, you failed to make any mention whatsoever of the basis for Mr. Johnson's appeal. You go to great lengths to describe the underlying facts of the murder, but there's no mention of the fact that this lawyer slept through the major portions of the trial...

MR. GONZALES: ... -- I don't remember the facts of this particular case...

SEN. FEINGOLD: Well, that's -- this is a very famous case. It's hard for me to imagine that you don't know the specifics of it. And it's almost unimaginable to me that a final formal legal memo to the governor would not have included reference to the fact that this man's lawyer slept during the trial." MORE...