The Executioner's Song - The Executioner's Song Part 51
Library

The Executioner's Song Part 51

Ironically, George Latimer, chairman of the Board of Pardons which will decide Gilmore's fate, was Calley's chief civilian defense attorney.

DESERET NEWS.

Nov. 16-The Daughters of Wisdom in Litchfield, Connecticut, speaking of Gilmore, said, "We believe he is meant to do something worthwhile for mankind. He needs time to find out what that something is."

DESERET NEWS.

Nov. 16- . . . Max Jensen's father, David Jensen, an Idaho farmer and stake president in the LDS Church, said, "His death made us feel sad, but it's something we are accepting. We sure wouldn't want to trade places with Gilmore's parents."

DESERET NEWS.

Nov. 6-Bushnell's widow, who is expecting another child shortly after the first of the year, has gone to California to live with her motherin-law. Family members say she goes to pieces at a mention of her husband's name.

Chapter 7.

Taste On Monday evening, while Nicole was going over her Last Will and Testament, Larry Schiller drove out to the International Airport in L.A. to buy a copy of Newsweek's cover story on Gary Gilmore. Schiller knew that airports received magazines a day earlier than the average outlet, and sometimes, working on a story, when he had to have a newsmagazine ahead of the competition, he'd even look up the local distributor.

Schiller spent part of Monday evening going over that cover story. It told him there were five people's rights he would have to buy. Gary's obviously, and Nicole's made two, but Monday night, for the first time, he heard of April Baker and decided he had better get her as well. Then he read Brenda Nicol's name in the article, and saw she was responsible for getting Gary out of jail. That could be a key link in the story. Brenda's rights had to be obtained. He didn't know she was Vern Damico's daughter, or even related to him, but Vern was the fifth name on his list.

First thing Tuesday morning, he called Lou Rudolph at ABC, and told him of his great interest in the story. There were a lot of different ways to do it, Schiller said, and quickly laid out a number of possibilities. He had learned a long time ago that in television you had to sell executives on the subject first. Had to establish it would still be bona fide television even if you did not obtain all the rights. If, for example, he got Gilmore's okay without Nicole's, a scenario could be worked up of a guy who comes out of prison and struggles with his old con habits, but finally kills a man, a real study of the pains of getting out of jail. That way they could do capital punishment and whether a man had a right to die, and never need to touch upon a love story.

On the other hand, said Schiller, if they got the girl, but couldn't succeed in signing up Gilmore, they might do an interesting struggle of two sisters both in love with the same criminal. They'd have to substitute a fictionalized criminal, but could still explore the triangle.

Or they could focus completely on Nicole and turn the thing into a study of a young girl who has been married a few times, is saddled with children, then falls in love with a criminal. Play down the murders, but emphasize the romantic difficulties of trying to live with a man that society does not trust.

Schiller was not trying to impose judgment, he told Rudolph, on the relative merits of these separate scenarios. He was just saying you could bypass Gilmore, make it a woman's story, and still have something of value.

No sooner had he hung up, than the radio was informing him that Gilmore and Nicole had tried a joint suicide. Immediately he booked a plane ticket to Salt Lake. At the airport, he called Rudolph again to suggest another alternative. Still, assuming they couldn't get the rights to Gilmore, they could do a study of a girl who wanted to die and so entered into a suicide pact with a criminal, thereby looking for a star-struck way to solve an unendurable problem.

Schiller repeated that he was sure of the potentialities, and wanted ABC to finance him in a real way. Not hotel bills or airplane fares, Schiller said, because that, Lou, he could always handle with his credit cards, no, Schiller wanted backing to get in there and deal for Gilmore. He would call again from Salt Lake.

He might have known. The moment that suicide attempt hit the media, not only was Larry Schiller on the plane, but everybody was heading for Salt Lake, ready to check into the Hilton where each of the media monkeys could watch all the other monkeys. There were going to be a lot of monkeys in that zoo.

From stories that got back to him, Schiller knew he was well known in the media for his impatience and his funds of energy. He always gave his big friendly grin when he heard such stories. They protected his secret weapon: it was that he had patience. He didn't tell people. Cultivated the opposite image. But he didn't mind being in situations where he just had to sit and wait. Give him an airplane trip or a waiting room. If you counted the years from the age of fourteen when he began to make money as an expert on skid marks, he had, by his own estimate, been running like a maniac for close to twenty-five years. So he didn't mind sitting on occasion.

His father, who once managed the Davega store in Times Square, and knew enterprise when he saw it, bought him a Rollei-cord when he was a kid, and a police band radio, and Schiller would hear accidents come in on the radio, get on his bike and ride to the place. If it was far away, and he only arrived after the vehicles had been removed, he could still photograph the skid marks. Then he would sell the prints to the insurance companies. It was his apprenticeship for getting to the scene.

Having broken into the media as one of Life's youngest photographers, Schiller had covered Khrushchev at the United Nations, and Madame Nhu in a convent, was at the Vatican when the Pope died, and took a picture of Nixon crying as he lost to Kennedy, a famous picture. He knew how to travel without a suitcase. Syndicated the Fisher quintuplets' story and photographed the Alaska earthquakes, Dallas and Watts, the Olympics, covered the trial of Sirhan Sirhan.

He reported income over six figures before he was twenty-four, and got awful tired of photographing different heads on the same body.

He was conceivably the best one-eyed photographer in the world-lost the sight of the other in an accident when he was five years old-but he got weary of walking into people's lives, shaking their hands, photographing them, walking out. He left Life and went into producing books and movies and fast magazine syndications on stories that weren't small. Wanted to do people in depth. Instead, did Jack Ruby on his deathbed, and Susan Atkins in the Manson trial.

He got a terrible reputation. Schiller worked hard to change that image. He published a book, Minamata, about mercury poisoning in Japan, and created the still montages in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Lady Sings the Blues, produced and directed The American Dreamer with Dennis Hopper, did the interviews for a book on Lenny Bruce by Albert Goldman. He won an Academy Award in Special Category for The Man Who Skied down Everest. It did not matter. He was the journalist who dealt in death.

Sitting on the airplane, resting from twenty-five years of galloping out of explosions into cover portraits, from riots to elections, sitting in one place with the fatigue of that twenty-five years embedded like skid marks in his limbs, sitting on this plane full of media monkeys heading for Salt Lake, Schiller thought it through. The Gilmore story would not help his reputation, yet he could not let it go. It irritated the nerve in him that never gave up So far, after two quick trips to Salt Lake, he had come back with empty hands. He was not accustomed to such meager results. On instinct, he had gone to Salt Lake just ten days after Gilmore announced he would not appeal, but found nothing. Boaz was in control of the scene, and Boaz had little interest in him. Boaz was dealing with David Susskind.

Schiller read over the telegram he had sent two days ago to Gilmore.

NOVEMBER 14.

GARY GILMORE.

UTAH STATE PRISON, BOX 250.

DRAPER UT 84020.

ON BEHALF OF ABC MOVIES, THE NEW INGOT COMPANY, AND MY ASSOCIATES WE WISH TO PURCHASE THE MOTION PICTURE AND PUBLICATION RIGHTS TO YOUR TRUE LIFE STORY FROM YOU OR YOUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES STOP OUR OWN CREDITS ARE 14 YEARS OF MAJOR MOTION PICTURES AND 6 BEST SELLING BIOGRAPHIES STOP MORE RECENTLY WE PRODUCED THE HIGHLY RECEIVED FILM "HEY, I'M ALIVE" THE TRUE LIFE STORY OF RALPH FLORES, A MORMON LAY PREACHER, AND A YOUNG GIRL WHO CRASHED IN A LIGHT PLANE IN THE YUKON AND SURVIVED 49 DAYS WITHOUT FOOD STOP THIS FILM ABOUT FAITH IN GOD AND CONVICTION WAS PRAISED BY THE MORMON CHURCH AND VIEWED BY OVER 30 MILLION PEOPLE STOP AMONG OUR OTHER CREDITS IS "SUNSHINE," THE TRUE STORY OF LYN HELTON A YOUNG MOTHER IN DENVER COLO WHO GAVE HER LIFE AT A YOUNG AGE IN RETURN FOR TIME WITH HER DAUGHTER STOP THIS STORY OF THE RIGHT TO DIE ISSUE AND STRENGTH OF CONVICTION WAS VIEWED BY OVER 70 MILLION PEOPLE AND THE BOOK IN HER WORDS READ BY OVER 8 MILLION PEOPLE STOP A COPY IS BEING SENT TO YOU UNDER SEPARATE COVER STOP WE WISH TO PRESENT YOUR STORY AS TRUTH NOT AS FICTION STOP I HAVE SEEN MR. BOAZ AND NOTED TO HIM THAT I WOUL CORRESPOND WITH YOU STOP I LOOK FORWARD TO HEARING FROM YOU OR YOUR REPRESENTATIVE STOP PLEASE CALL COLLECT AT ANY TIME STOP SINCERELY YOURS.

LAWRENCE SCHILLER.

There had been no answer. His telegram might just as well have gone into the dead-letter bin at the post office.

He went out to see Vern Damico at the shoe store in Provo and Vern wasn't there. He bumped into a couple of local reporters in Salt Lake and said, I'm not here to compete with you, just like you to tell me who is what in this city, and how do you get in to see Gilmore?

They weren't getting in either. Schiller heard of Nicole, but also heard she wouldn't talk to anyone. He kept missing her at the prison.

Those first and second trips to Salt Lake, Schiller was hitting stone walls. Couldn't find the story. He got into his rented car and drove from Provo to the airport in Salt Lake, and on the drive, staring down the Interstate, said to himself, If I can't find the story, then nobody can find it. But if nobody can, then it has to be a good story. He couldn't stop thinking about it.

The moment he heard news of the double suicide attempt, Schiller said to himself, there is a story and it's real. Since it's real, it has, in this case, to be fantastic.

At the Hilton, it looked like the crowd of press had expanded from fifty to five hundred. The foreign press was beginning to come in. The British in numbers. When the British arrived en masse, the stamp was on the meat. The story would have the largest worldwide appeal.

Schiller made a few phone calls. His luck seemed to have changed. Reached Vern Damico on the first ring, and had a good talk, asked Mr. Damico's opinion of where Nicole might be. Damico seemed to think she was at the hospital in Provo, and Schiller made an appointment afterward to talk with him. Schiller got into his rented car. The monkeys would stay at the Hilton and exchange theories on the crime, but he was on his way to the hospital in Provo.

The waiting room was small and had a lot of people. Schiller went up to the desk and asked for Nicole Barrett. They acted as if they had never heard of her. He went around the corner, and put a call in to the hospital administrator, and asked if any of Nicole Barrett's relatives could be located quickly. The woman said they were coming in and out all the time. The mother's been here, Schiller was informed, but she's not here right now. Schiller sat down in his heavy brown coat and prepared to wait. It was a hot waiting room, but he was comfortable. Gilmore was in the hospital, under guard. Gilmore was out of it and could not be reached. Back in Salt Lake, the monkeys would run back and forth, trading information, but there was nothing in the story that counted now except Gilmore and Nicole. Since he couldn't get to Gilmore, he would wait to make contact with Nicole. It was very simple to Schiller.

There was no anxiety about sitting there for hours. Other reporters would be on the phone, checking back to hear what was going down, but Schiller sat and relaxed and let the heat of the room pour over him and the fatigues of twenty-five years perspired slowly, a drop and another drop from the bottomless reservoirs of fatigue, and he sat there quietly thinking, and let his sins and errors wash over him, and reviewed them. He considered it obscene not to learn from experience.

3.

His worst sin, his number-one error, he usually decided, was the Susan Atkins story. He had been in Yugoslavia when the Tate-LaBianca murders took place, but six months later, driving down the Santa Monica freeway, news came over the radio that a girl in prison named Susan Atkins had just given information on Tate-LaBianca to her cellmate. Next day, Schiller learned that one of her attorneys was Paul Cruso, who in 1963 had written the contract when Schiller sold a nude photograph of Marilyn Monroe to Hugh Hefner. It obtained the highest price ever paid for a single picture up to then, $25,000. Schiller now called Paul Caruso and said Susan Atkins's story could be sold around the world, and would help to pay for her defense.

So, Schiller was brought in to see Susan Atkins between her two Grand Jury appearances, and she confessed the murders in a series of three connected interviews. He did sell it all over the world. Then it was reprinted in America. Suddenly, Susan Atkins was no longer the State's star witness, because she now had a vested, interest in her own story. Schiller had destroyed part of the State's case.

He was sick to the stomach over that, but it took a while to acknowledge the fact. It came upon him little by little. He was asked to dinner one night by a famous lawyer and couldn't understand why, until he saw that six eminent Judges were also present. They wanted to hear why a journalist would do what he had done. It was a very intelligent dinner, and he was delighted to sit with such fine and serious people, but unhappy to realize he'd been fucking them over.

Earlier, he sold the Susan Atkins story to New American Library for $15,000, a quick sale for a quick and rotten book, a way of liquidating his involvement, but it didn't liquidate so much as proliferate.

Newsweek interviewed him about the book and he said, "Look, I published what Susan said. I don't know whether it's true or not." Newsweek ended their article with that quote: "I don't know whether it's true or not." It made the sweat break out on his forehead to think about it. He had learned one lesson he would never erase, and thought of it again on the night he dined with the Judges. The secret of people who had class was that they remained accurate to the facts.

Schiller called it history. You recorded history right. If you did the work that way, you could end up a man of substance.

So when Helter Skelter came out, he said to himself, "Schiller, you really fucked up. With the profit you made on the original sale, you could have done a definitive study of the entire Manson family. You threw away what should have been an important book." It was embarrassing to recollect. He even had to appear in Court to testify on how the Susan Atkins interviews took place. When the Judge said, "How would you characterize your occupation, Mr. Schiller?" he replied, "I believe I am a communicator." The courtroom laughed.

They thought he was a hustler. The memory burned into the skin right under his beard. "I believe I am a communicator," and the courtroom laughed. He would do this Gilmore one differently. Lay a proper foundation for every corner of the story. And he sat in the room and waited in the heat in his heavy brown coat, and the hours went by.

There was a bearded guy at the other end of the room. Schiller with his black beard and the other guy with his bright brown beard eyed each other. After an hour or two, a girl came in who looked to be media and went over to the other beard and soon started bawling the shit out of the fellow. Schiller could pick up that his name was Jeff Newman and he was from the National Enquirer, and the girl was saying, "You knew she was going to attempt suicide and you sat on it. You and your fucking newspaper." It made Newman so upset, he got up and went out. Now, Schiller went over to the girl and said, "I'm Larry Schiller, representing ABC television." She turned on him like an eagle, claws out, said, "You, too!" Schiller didn't even know her name. She was a local stringer, but sure carrying on. The men didn't give a damn about the women, she was saying, and yet the women were killing themselves over the men. Schiller nodded and got away as quick as he could.

Then a very tall young fellow with dark black hair that came down to his shoulders, and a girl's name tattooed on his knuckles, came in, and looked so shook Schiller figured he had to be Nicole's brother, that is, if she had a brother and Schiller went up and introduced himself but it was apparent the fellow didn't want to communicate, so Schiller sat down again and waited, and another couple of hours went by before he saw a woman standing at the candy shop next to the waiting room. She was thin and small boned, had her hair in a bun, and looked like a very tough western woman who could have walked across the plains. By the expression on her face-such iron fatigue and held-in sorrow, he was sure it had to be Nicole's mother (although later he found out it was Nicole's grandmother, and Nicole's mother wasn't even forty yet) so he wrote a note to introduce himself as Lawrence Schiller and said he was here to discuss the events taking place in their lives in relation to the motion picture and book rights and would appreciate a meeting with her or her authorized representative, or an attorney (it was always better to say "authorized representative" before you said "attorney" so they knew you weren't suing). He finished by mentioning that he was prepared to pay Nicole a minimum of $25,000 for her rights, and put the note in an envelope that had Mrs. Baker written across it.

He handed that to the woman and said, "As you will see, I am Lawrence Schiller from ABC television. This is not the time and place, but when the occasion is right, I would appreciate it if you would open my envelope and read it." Then he turned around walked out of the hospital. A contact had been made.

When the front-page story on Gilmore came out in the New York Times, November 8th, David Susskind was fascinated. For a front-page piece, it was well written, and gave a good description of the murders, the man's sentence, and his decision not to appeal. Put that together with Gilmore's previous criminality, and it all suggested a fascinating scenario.

Shortly after the article caught his eye, almost immediately in fact, Susskind's old friend and associate Stanley Greenberg called, and they had a good conversation. Stanley had written a TV story fifteen years ago about a man awaiting execution. The man had been so long on Death Row that he changed in character, and the question became, "Who was being executed?" Metamorphosis the play had been called, and Susskind always felt that it had had some effect on the end of capital punishment in New York State, and maybe even a little to do with the Supreme Court decision that saved a lot of men's lives on Death Row. "Of course," Stanley said now to David, "inviolate and forever simply means till the next generation. Then you have to do it all over again."

Greenberg was a man of some decorum, but Susskind could tell he was aroused, "What fascinates me about this Gilmore case," he was saying, "is that it's an open commentary on the utter failure of our prison system to rehabilitate anybody. Why, the guy's been in and out his whole damn life and he just keeps getting worse. It all escalated from car stealing up to armed robbery with a dangerous weapon. That's a devastating commentary," said Greenberg. "Secondly, it could offer a wonderful statement about capital punishment and how godawful it is, eye for an eye. I even think that reaching a large audience can probably save the guy's life. Gilmore says he wants to die, but he's obviously out of his head. I think our production could be a factor in the man's not being executed." That appealed to Susskind. "They can't execute this man," he said to Stanley, "he's deranged. He's insane. They should have understood that way back."

They talked a long time. Finally Susskind said to Greenberg, "Why don't you go to Utah? I think this story's got several layers of importance and interest and could make very exciting, dramatic material. If, on investigation, it holds up, and we can get the releases we need, we might have something here."

Greenberg couldn't go right away because of his contract at Universal, but each day. they talked to each other, and Susskind began conversations with Boaz. He quickly decided Dennis was not your typical lawyer.

Boaz boasted, "I've got releases from everybody. Got them all."

He kept talking about how he had locked up everything. Susskind called Stanley Greenberg and said, "This is a very odd attorney. However, he's got his eye on the money machine."

Dennis said, "Look, I can't cooperate if you don't put your evidence of good faith on the line. Money," said Dennis, "is not to be considered not of the essence," and giggled. "What do you want?" asked Susskind. "Well, now," said Dennis, "it's getting to be a worldwide case." "How can I," asked Susskind, "be sure you have all the releases you say you have?" "You," said Dennis, "have to start somewhere. You better start by trusting me. I have exactly what I told you I have. If you don't believe me, there are ten other people out here who want it. It's just that I like your reputation, Mr. Susskind. I'd like to give you first crack at it." He wanted a goodly sum, in the neighborhood of $50,000 for the rights of all the principals involved in the case, and asked Susskind to put that into a telegram, which David did, and sent it off.

Susskind also enclosed a legal package. It had a contract and release forms. Boaz might have told him that he had it all but when Susskind asked him in what form were the releases, Dennis said, "One-and two-sentence quitclaims."

"Oh, look," said Susskind, "that doesn't work at all, you're going to have to use established legal forms, waiver of rights for the payment, all such. It has to conform to what we do in the motion picture and television business."

Dennis said, "I don't understand why you have to have all that folderol."

"It's not folderol," said Susskind, "it's of the essence. People can change their minds. A one-or two-sentence release probably contains language too loose to bear up under scrutiny. I'm sorry, I have to send you release forms." He did. Susskind went to his lawyers and they sent off the package.

By pure coincidence, Stanley Greenberg arrived at the Salt Lake Hilton on the 16th, the afternoon of the double suicide saga, and so precisely the busiest day of the month for the media. Stanley had telephoned the night before from Kensington in California, where he lived just north of San Francisco, to confirm an appointment with Boaz, but under the circumstances, in all the brouhaha at the Hilton over the double suicide, he never expected the lawyer to keep his date. To Greenberg's surprise, however, Dennis did show up, and just late enough to have given Stanley Greenberg time to look carefully at the network news at six o'clock. Right after, to his astonishment, Boaz knocked at his hotel room door.

If not for this dramatic event today, they would almost certainly have met, Greenberg thought, as adversaries, or at the least, he would have felt obliged to deal with Boaz as a bizarre specimen of a lawyer willing to kill off his client. Now, however, Boaz seemed to have gone through a considerable shift of opinion in the greatest hurry. So their conversation proved to be more productive than Stanley could have hoped.

As he explained to Boaz over the course of a drink, his hackles went up about a week ago when it became apparent there was a real danger of Gilmore being executed. Stanley explained that he found capital punishment personally repugnant. He simply couldn't sit around and let it happen. This might seem a romantic reaction, but he had felt obliged, nonetheless, to gather his forces and get together with David Susskind, who was the right producer in an endeavor like this.

Credentials established, Greenberg was now ready to discuss the case. He led off by saying he just didn't see where any criminal had the right to tell society what to do to him. By his lights, a criminal had no more right to demand capital punishment than to demand his immediate release. Society, after all, set the rules.

Dennis, who had been looking oddly subdued, given Stanley's preconceptions of him, now seemed fired up a bit. He replied that Gary wasn't demanding anything. He simply didn't want to appeal.

Appeal law was based on the premise that nobody wanted to be executed, and so it offered all sorts of possibilities for relief, but Gary didn't want to pursue those possibilities.

It wasn't that simple, Greenberg argued back. The Supreme Court had said capital punishment could be resumed, but only if certain legal steps were taken. If you were going to execute people, it was important to kill them only under guarded and truly hedged-about circumstances.

At this point, Dennis again looked gloomy and said that he wasn't so sure he had done a very competent job. In any case, his feelings were undergoing a radical change. Up to now, he had supported Gilmore's plea because he felt the man had a right to determine his own life. Now, however, push had come to shove, and he had realized for the first time that Gary was actually going to die and that made him so upset he didn't know if he wanted to be a part of the process.

Greenberg had the impression Dennis was slightly stoned. Feelings of inadequacy certainly began to pour out. Greenberg even found himself liking Boaz more than he expected. On some levels he was quite attractive, sort of a free spirit. Of course, he was extremely and obviously disorganized, and not the sort of attorney Greenberg might want to entrust his fortune or future to. Still, he was likable, so likable. "Have you been in touch," Stanley asked, "with the local ACLU?"

Hosts of feelings poured forth. No, Boaz had not become involved with them. That was against his client's wishes. His client had this peculiar melange of right-wing ideas and left-wing emotions.

Gary hated blacks, for instance, but that, Boaz explained, was because they were a dangerous majority in a prison. All the white prisoners were in danger of being raped by blacks. Gary also hated the ACLU. That was because they preached freedom of the individual but wouldn't give Gilmore the liberty to choose his death. So, Boaz had not gotten in touch with them. But just an hour ago, talking to Geraldo Rivera, he had had a brilliant conception. Only he would need some help with it, in terms of paperwork. There were many motions that would have to be filed, for which he would need a Utah lawyer. So, now he wanted to get in touch with the ACLU. When Greenberg encouraged this, Boaz called up a representative named Judy Wolbach, and she agreed to come over to the room for a drink.

Before it was over, Greenberg decided it had to be one of the bizarre conversations of all time. An absolutely marvelous dramatic play. Simply couldn't have imagined it better. This thin, vibrant, intelligent woman, very high strung, very liberal, very suspicious of Boaz on the one hand, and on the other side, Dennis pouring out his soul at how he had been harassed by the legal community and was the number-one suspect at the prison for smuggling in Seconal.

There were tears in Boaz's eyes from time to time, and it was hard to know if he was more worried about himself-"I'll take a polygraph test," he said-or more worked up over poor Gilmore, dying, for all they knew, in Salt Lake right now, and Nicole somewhere else-was she also dying? Here, Greenberg thought, is this mad, churning young lawyer, and then this Judy Wolbach glaring at Dennis as if he were a specimen. She was completely distrustful of the auspices. Even the little bar in the corner of the room must have looked to her, under these circumstances, sinister.

Stanley could hardly blame her. Reading about Dennis in the newspapers, she must have seen him as some sort of hippie hustler.

Now, there he was before her, agitated, smiling, arrogant, modest, first dejected, then haranguing her. Stanley couldn't imagine what he would be like at a time of less agitation.

Almost immediately, Dennis came up with this impossibly attractive and hopeless notion. He wanted to get Gary transferred to a Medium Security prison in some state where they allowed connubial visits.

Oh, it would work, he exclaimed. Nicole could get a job in the local town and bring up her children. On weekends they would have their married life, two nights a week. That could give Gary a motive for living. Why, if the court really understood what a fine person Gary was, they would do it. Gary could write and draw. Cottage incarceration was what he was talking about.

Greenberg noticed that Boaz was now happy again. It was apparent: give him an original idea and some remote possibility of achieving it, and he couldn't be happier. It didn't matter if the conditions were unattainable-just give him a novel approach to the pursuit of happiness, and he was happiness itself.

Judy Wolbach didn't seem very impressed, however. Dennis had ended his presentation by saying that the ACLU should provide the services to accommodate this legal action. Judy Wolbach gave him a speech back. The ACLU in Utah, in case he didn't know, was very underfunded.

"Don't you want him to live?" asked Boaz.

Have you looked, she inquired, into the ways that his life might actually be saved? She began to talk about relevant law in Supreme Court cases, and civil rights procedures under Federal and State law.

When Boaz admitted he had not read such cases, she shook her head, and asked if he was familiar with Gilmore's psychiatric file. In reply, Boaz became critical. Why was she not forthcoming? Why did she emphasize the legalistic rather than the humanistic? Greenberg couldn't believe his good fortune: what a play!

Boaz now said he viewed himself as a man of literature, rather than a lawyer lost in procedure. "In the Renaissance, man knew he could be a poet and a lawyer both."

"Well," said Judy Wolbach, "think about which hat you're going to wear, and stay in touch."

Showing Judy down the hall, Stanley Greenberg felt obliged to remark, "I really don't believe Boaz is the person to represent Gilmore."

Over breakfast, next day, he saw Dennis on "Good Morning America."

GERALDO RIVERA Dennis Boaz . . . a man who up until now has supported his client's wish for the right to die. Dennis, welcome. Dennis, welcome.

You've argued in court, sometimes eloquently, that Gary Gilmore deserves the right to die. Do you still believe that? Do you still believe that?

DENNIS BOAZ (long pause) I believe he has the right to determine his own fate. I can no longer support, uh, the execution by the State.

GERALDO RIVERA Are you saying that you've changed your position, Dennis?