The botched execution of Christa Gail Pike brings to mind a similar case from 1947, when the State of Louisiana tried, and failed, to execute Willie Francis. I learned about Willie Francis in 1974 when I was a law clerk to Judge J. Skelly Wright, one of the heroic cadre of Southern judges who desegregated all-Black schools after Brown v. Board of Education. When he was in private practice, Judge Wright argued a single case in the U.S. Supreme Court. He represented Willie Francis in his unsuccessful effort to avoid a second electrocution. This is that story.

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