that's andrew breitbart. >> that was "after words" book tv's signature program where authors are interviews by journalists, policymakers, and others familiar with their material. book tv airs saturday at 10 p.m., 12 p.m. sunday, and 12 a.m. on monday. you can go to booktv.org and click on the topics list on the upper right side of the page. ..

the. >> and the principal in the school system. laura has liv negative charlottesville since 1993 coming to work in the state prison system now the director of piedmont house a transitional home for men returning from prison. her book talking about the anatomy of an execution is 10 years in the making finally completed with the assistance of bay, there. she is 13 from the united methodist church and her parish is the people god puts in her path daily. lynn powell is the author of framing innocence of the prosecutors, a mother's photographs the prosecutors deal and a small town response and a two books of

poetry and the sums of paradise. from the national endowment from the arts and the ohio arts council her work has been included in numerous anthologies including 180 more extraordinary palms for the recent every day. she lived in charlottesville 1982 through 1985 and lived with her family in ohio since 1990. let's welcome both speakers. [applause] >> a good afternoon. i am also glad this beautiful day you have decided to join us inside for a private like to start with a question more than i want you to think about for a second. do you remember the worst day of your life?

some if you are nodding in some if you are making faces. i do. january 10, 2000. i took my a three hour drive down 95 to the correctional center outside of the jarret virginia knowing that i was going to be a spiritual adviser 21 of my former students now aged 26 coming he had just a few hours left to live. as i drove i thought the same thought had had so many times what will i say? how can i help this young man face the death? i arrived at the facility to find his mother outside. she had just said her goodbyes to her son and

there were a few friends and family there. and i wondered how well i walked through the store and down the long hallway? i felt a piece come over me and i knew i was not alone. i had a faith and to take it into the death house with me and that gave me a great deal of comfort. and as i went to the doors i wondered how did we get to this point*? how did this young man that i met at the age of 14 land here? young man i was a teacher of and a friend for coming over the last nine years, how did we get here? there were times i wanted to

pinch myself and say is this real? it is not a real. i a remember the trial and vividly remember him as a 15 year-old singing songs in my algebra class. how did we get to the death house in virginia? it was a farce of a trial. i will never forget it and it changed my life because i realized that everyone does not have equal representation. it was a difficult time as i tried to support my former student, but also tried tried, there were times when i was questioning this young man's decisions and choices, the victims of his

hand. i remember talking with his mother to confirm that chris at age 17 had taken a life of his girlfriend. what brings a young man to that point* was my question. i know that many, many people ponder and question and research and reflect on the death penalty. before i was 16 more walking in those shoes, i pondered the same thing. but living with chris through the situation and brought me to a new understanding for crow i appreciate it family more than i ever had before. i appreciate it a sunrise.

i appreciate it thus no. -- and the snow. one day that i visited just a few days before the execution it was snowing. he commented to me the last time he had seen it snow the last time he had seen a sunrise and the last time to touch the hand of his mother. of the worst day of my life was walking into the death house holding chrises hand as they were preparing to execute him. the anatomy of an execution is more of a textbook in examines the legal issues one happen during his trial and what didn't happen and his wife and choices and

background because chris wanted people to know his story and never make the mistakes that he made coming i hope you will read his story. thank you. [applause] >> i also want to thank you for coming today. it is an honor to be on the panel. my book is also about a prosecution that was overzealous and in my case, it was a very different outcome and the stakes are not as high to begin with but a story of the legal system going awry. overzealous prosecution of the mother and my small town

about one dozen years ago. i just want to begin by setting up the facts of the story so that we can talk about other things in the question-and-answer but introduce what happened part 21 of my book that is in three parts per ghosn diaz to rich was a mother in a small town in ohio mother of and a year-old girl of name to norah and live with her partner david and she was a passionate photographer after her daughter was born. she decided to document her daughter's life in great detail and relish that and took pictures of norah all the time. by the time she was eight she had taken 35,000 photographs. these are not digital but rolls of film developed at

the discount drug march processing lab they were all numbered and filed an archived in cardboard boxes in her dining room and someday she wanted to put together a book. a lot to choose from. july 6, 1999, cynthia scooped up 11 rolls and took them to the discount drug mart to have them developed. a few days later 10 came back but one did not prepare she assumed it was lost so she began to call the lab to track it down. she knew some of those had pictures of her in the bathtub because she had taken pictures of her since she was born and most of those had been developed through the lab. a few weeks went by and on a lot -- august 11, the police knocked on the door and said they had heard pictures at

the station and she was relieved. but they said there is serious questions about the pictures. come down to the station. she was completely willing to go she thought she could explain the photographs and invited the police into her house and she is a photographer they did not ask they just said to come to the station. david insisted they get a lawyer before they went so they inform the police that is what they would do then they left. the next day they met with a lawyer named amy who was a specialist of family law. said the explained what she thought was on the role and she said i think what is likely to happen is if the police are concerned enough they may pass along to the

prosecutor. if they are concerned enough he will pass them to children services and if they are concerned they will send a social worker to your house or to school to find out the intent of the photograph. so she had sent the right of the affidavit where she explained the photographs and have it notarized and submitted to the police. six weeks web by and in that six weeks the police never returned to the house, never a search warrant, didn't ask any other questions, the county prosecutor did not contact the lawyer and children's services never showed up. everyone assumed the incident was over and it was taken care of. september 28, to sheriff deputies came to the door

and arrested cynthia. and to occur to county jail and david had to bail her out by putting $20,000 lien on the house and she was arrested on two felony charges. the first ohio law said you cannot take a photograph of a naked child. that would make most of us funds. [laughter] fortunately the law had been constrained by the u.s. supreme court. to cases where there was a luke exhibition or a graphic focus on the genitals. nudity alone would no longer be the standard there had dba clued exhibition. the second that she was indicted was prohibiting

photograph being in a sexual performance. this photographs were taken after they had been to a photo exhibit at a local art gallery and there was one of a woman rising a mysteriously and nora asked if they can replicate that at home and as cynthia said yes. day filled of the sub with the bubbles and she took photographs but wants the water had run out she continued taking photographs and she took a series of for that norah was rinsing off with a shower sprayer and her hands. her head, her neck, and in the third photograph the water was streaming toward her gentle area but that was obscured by the water they showers prayer was not touching her.

the last photograph was the same thing of her bottom but those last two that the prosecutor alleged was performing a sexual act. that was the second element. when this hits the newspapers in that town and regional news with urban shot you can imagine in the town was shocked. they were beloved, a well-known, admired, cynthia was a school bus driver. norah was a gifted and bright and lovely child and everyone was completely stunned. my son was eight years old and a good friend of norah so there was a personal connection to a mother who alleged to do something so terrific yet the mother of my son's close friend.

the book is written in three parts. the first part lays out the arrest getting to know the family. the second-largest children's services case because they did show up. not for another month after the arrest. so a social worker find they showed up at norah at -- norris goal october 20th. the police have had the photographs three months. they do an interview with norah at the school. and decide not to take emergency temporary custody but to file charges she is abused based on those photographs that i described. she is abused and agencies should have protected supervision or temporary custody they should be able to monitor her within the family or take the child to put her into foster care.

part to happens what happens in that case. for many of us in the community when children services got involved, we thought a good. and they will investigate and see there was no intent. this is a loving family, innocent photograph. and the charges to do the right thing for the child but that is not what happens. the wellbeing of the child is not what motivated any actions. by the end of part to it has felt like of farce. and in part to three coming you learn how the community galvanized and stood up to a prosecutor had been a county prosecutor 20 years and was known for being fierce, rigid and never backing down but our community stood up to him

and did influence the outcome of this case. but i will stop there for questions. [applause] >> i may be one of the few people who has read both books. i want to say a few things to get the dialogue going. it seems logical to have the two books on the same panel in several ways. one is obviously how deep they questioned the death penalty is, murder, so crucially at the heart of our penal system and we have so much trouble with this situation in. obviously any question about protecting our children coming issues of pornography , we don't quite know how to deal with so we have these laws that seem to

deal with crimes our society does not accept. both books could this be seen as procedural and there has already happened now obviously laura trevvett anderson is involved in this ploy is life much longer before the crime is committed and lynn powell nose cynthia well in advance the community is there but once you read the book you know, something has happened. see you found out what was done wrong and what could be done right. and in each case something has happened but since the and it is shown not to have done what she has been alleged and with press -- christopher thomas it is hard to say he did not commit the crime but what it will our society do about it? and actually both stories of

the piano apparatus, at the same time, they are different christopher community failed him and so many ways from the very first part by hope you have a chance to talk about the mitigation which was not prepared for his capital punishment trial. your community and so many ways is better now because of the way they pull together they seem comparable stories in that way and i am sure we the audience will ask questions about the specifics. and they have the author in them. in my line of work it is interesting when the person telling the story is also a character. lynn powell decided to use

first-person and talks about herself and her son and does not over do that but as a co-author laura trevvett anderson you are in the third person and that is an interesting decision and biographers will make that decision but inouye it had to be you did this or that but it is so important that the authors were a part and deeply implicated and move by the circumstances. i wanted to start by asking you both playing at some topics but each to take a minute or two of the process of writing the book in this sense lynn powell is collaboration and day construct the aftermath of both books took a long time

to write i gather? >> can you say something to your audience? >> the book started as therapy for me. the first day of my life that jolted me and i was numb head to toe for a long time. one of the ways trying to get out of the numbness was to start writing like a journal laing. chris and i did talk about writing a book that i would author a book someday that was more me trying to agree to something rather than discuss it but he very much wanted, especially teenagers to hear his story that they are smarter and make better choices and he wanted a book written where his story to

be told. i know i wrote to well over 100 pages of everything that i could remember about chris about me and him, are teaching, every incident, a funny thing in class, everything i could think of and i am glad i did. by the time i wrote the book the memory has started to fade of that -- a bit. i became a guest speaker at the roanoke college with todd who was just given my name and i started speaking almost every semester for his class is. usually the students would say why don't you write a book? i did not feel that i had

the experience to do that. i was very lucky are blessed to meet the author of dead man walking and introduced to her in a private place so we could talk and she said you need to write his story. eventually i ast cod who had lowered authored a book with the help me? and then the beginning of our journey together and from that plant it took three years of actual research getting all the court cases having about eight large boxes full of court documents, letters between press his co-defendant and restarted to go through everything interviewing everyone who would talk with us so we

could do the best job of telling the story with as much fact as we could. it truly was about 10 years in the making. >> did you write part he would rewrite them and vice versa? are was there the entire draft? >> initially we agreed i would write to the story as a student and he would write the legal fees. he was lawyer and professor and author whether as his chapter are my chapter but the story of chris morrice survey legal journal and that is how we were putting it together when we sent it

off to the publishing company that did shoes of suggest we do not do it that way and we want it in one voice so then todd had to rewrite everything from his voice and i became a third person. >> to go back a little bit with the story i have not told do. children services goes bad they and it looks like nor will be ruled the abused child and the arguments of prosecutor used in the hearing was very disturbing to our community. but the community does galvanize and begin to take action and i play a leadership role to become a public spokesperson and that got national media attention, it able to leverage that attention to

get the prosecutor into negotiation with cynthia's lawyers. in the middle of all of that, an old the year friend of mine jane barnes came to visit me. she was there while this was swirling around i could not pay her much attention but she said you ought to write about this. i am a poet for brian used to writing things that are this long. and i thought she is right. i had no idea how i would do it. it felt completely overwhelming. and when the case was finally over, i felt like i needed to write about it. i began to do all the interviews and said i glad that i did i did them for one year.

a little with david, low lowered rock, norah, anybody who would talk to me and i transcribe those but then i put the project a way. i did not touch it for at least three years. partly i had to figure out how do write nonfiction and take all of this information with the court documents, correspondence, t he press clippings, research, how do i turn this into a story? but the bigger question is what storey? one storey am i telling? perhaps because imf poet and right of myself i had to figure out why i needed to tell this story. enough time had elapsed and

the fervor had died down as an advocate ien no longer had to tell the story what a great thing we did. and the advocacy aspect began to quiet down and i felt the desire to tell the more complicated story. so they like the complication 94 vilifying. as i began to clarify i wanted to begin to write to. but part of what gave me the energy to tell the story was a woman named virginia who was the dirty and appointed to the child for the children's services case. guardian ad volume is the third party appointed who was there to focus on the

wellbeing of the child. you do not have to be an attorney but just a volunteer per eshoo was abolished -- volunteer appointed to be the guardian. a self-described fundamentalist christian who was a it is salant against a child pornography and spent years steeping herself with the terrible facts of child pornography and saw it as heard great crusade and when she was appointed to this case she was so excited because she thought she would nail a real pornographer and uncovered the underground of child porn in ohio. when she saw the actual photographs she did 180-degree turn around and got to know the family i'd like children services and the police and interviewed

everybody who had heard of since the a store and spent time with the family and became the family's most passionate advocate and insisted it be dropped and testified doing everything she could. i bring that up because i think it was hard for me to figure out what my story was. i kept coming back to virginia and the that she was the real her when we did a lot and made a difference but virginia was the person and the fiercely held beliefs but able to look at another human being to see the truth and not impose on them or to see the validity and integrity of their point* of view to coexist. and to plug the crusade aside or the fashion aside

and it is her act that it begins why i needed to tell the story. >> i saw you nodding about what story to tell. did you go through a similar transition having to find out? i know you had to change the organization. but did you experience something similar? >> we'll refer started talking about the story, chris committed murder. but it is more than i can tell every detail but there is so much more to it and then back. that is a fact. >> tell a little bit more. >> how many of you were 17 years old ones? [laughter] think about how we were at

age 17 how much sure we were and decisions and never motivated or manipulated by anyone else. chris had grown up basically abandoned by almost every person who he cared about. at age 14, the two people he did care about coming his grandparents both died within six months of each other. truly he became an orphan although sent to live with his biological mother who had not raise him. his mother was and is a day so he was sent at age 14 to live in a different community with the mother and her significant other in a household that he did not know. he stayed there as long as he could and that is when he

became my student. i did not know the things that were going on at home. i heard some things and saw him starting to react to his environment in a negative way which is why he was sent to be with me in the special ed classroom but i saw a bright light with in the on man the minute i met him i truly love this kid. i saw there was something there and something special even though the shell was sad, depressed and angry i saw the light inside and while he was my student the light became brighter and brighter. i loved this kid and not a class clown the moving in

that direction when he was aspiring to be but i saw him from going to be a depressed , angry young teenager to being more confident coming his grades went up and became humorous and fun to be around coming he had friends and was more normal than i had seen him a few years earlier. but the home life which i did not know was an absolute nightmare. to the point* if he got home a little bit late his mother locked him out of the house. he was not wanted and that is the bottom line. he had had enough and i remember the day he came in after thanksgiving break and said i am moving back to where he had grown up with

his grandparents. i was devastated because i saw the work that i had done and that we had done was going to walk out of my life. i called his mother and expecting for her to be arm in arm and we would convince careers not to move and i said margaret chris tells me he is moving. she says yes. we're not going to let this happen? she said he can go. 16 years old. i did not know the pain and anguish he was feeling at home. he did move back. that is where he meant a cute little girl named jessica who was 13 at the time and soon after became

fast friends. he turned 17 and she was 14 and they were dating and she was very manipulative and smart and probably beyond her years with maturity to the point* her parents told them they could no longer see each other that crass was no good, bad. >> he was getting into drugs and out call and getting arrested and juvenile detention. >> but he went back to the unsupervised place clearly spiraling and it is a horrible story. >> and actually i did not hear this until the day of his death almost nine years later that i heard the story that jessica was told by her parents you cannot see each other anymore and she desperately was almost in a

similar situation was feeling very abandoned by her parents but also very controlling of her parents and crass and called him one night crying hysterically on the phone as we know 14 year-old girls can do and chris didn't know what to do with it. he jokingly said i don't know how to help. do you want me to kill your parents? and she said yes. that's it. that is the solution. he said no. yes. so within one week they devised the plan. she did. kravis walked down to her house the story is complicated because there was a question as to who killed whom and

chris shot into the bedroom after three hours of playing on the floor saying i will not do this. she says yes you are and informed him that she was pregnant but she was not in the only way they would we together is if they killed her parents. he went to the doorway and shot into the bedroom and the father was killed instantly. he immediately went back to jessica's room and dove over her bed and lay on the floor terrified and jessica came into the bedroom and within a few minutes stood her mother and their lives and

everything pivots on the next detail because one of them pick up the shotgun and reloaded and shot her mother point* blank. one of them. later that next day they were questioned separately but within the view of each other and chris broke down and admitted to killing both parents which we later found out years later he had not. people can still have their opinion. jessica never confessed to picking up the shotgun but the mitigating circumstances and a per cent who was local not a mitigating specialist

off third doing negative preparation of the tryout offered to do her specialty to look at every single goal detail fairly objectively then giving the attorney and court the opinion and chris is an attorney did not respond to her offer and never even called her back. after the trial and he has been found guilty of capital murder because of killing both parents. that is where the killing of kathy is critical. the mitigating specialists continued to hurt pursue and took it on herself with a personal interest and she had in the case and was able to trick chris through the

facts and a one fact his attorney never brought to anything out and only called one person to the stand and she pleaded the fifth which she could not do because her trial was done and her fate was sealed there is nothing that could have happened and illegally could not but the attorney did not know that. but they found out was the trajectory of the buckshot was straight on and both chris and jessica statements nothing differed as to where they were standing. chris was on the floor and jessica was standing straight on and the trajectory was st. it could not happen crass. i remember the phone call that i got when read figured that out and talked with chris and broken down to the point* he said i did not.

for the first time in light of time until been to the audience questions and remember raise your hand. we have volunteers with the microphone. >> what happened to jessica? >> every but a once to know what happened to jessica up. she was 14 years old and at the time of the crime 199014 and younger would be tried as juveniles and not adults brokers was tried as an adult and the most she could get was juvenile life.

that would be through age 21. at age 21 she walked out the doors of the juvenile correctional center while chris was still on death row. she was found guilty of first-degree murder and he was found of capital murder because of the belief that he confessed to killing both, she walked free at age 21. she had a second chance to come to the stand to testify during an appeals portion for crass and she continued to say that she had nothing to say. she now lives in chesterfield county and is a wife and mother.

>> could you not have been committed of capital crime if the only killed 1%? i am confused if you is only proven to kill one person. >> in this case not every case they would not have sought the death penalty with just the death of the father. they both would have been charged with first and -- first-degree murder the outcome maybe life in prison but would have charged both with first degree and in fact, one of the points during research that i literally thought i would throw up we were talking to the first attorney chris had that they were hiring for him for the trial and in this attorney

let us know that to he was in the throes of a plea bargain with the prosecuting attorney and the attorney was very sure that they were going to get to a plea-bargain not to go to trial or be capital murder. the judge found a way for that not to happen and buy pulling the attorney off of the case. he asked for a two month extension may be 30 days because he was involved with a capital murder case in richmond and asked for a continuance. instead of saying he asked for a continuance he put it in writing that he had asked to come off the case and pulled him off of the case and put in a young whippersnapper right out of

moscow who had never tried a case. had been to court maybe wants right out of law school never capital murder or any case is. if i can share this quick leave said day the trial was to begin i literally harassed this attorney, the one point* on the case because i wanted to know how things were going and i was very concerned i was constantly told everything was fine he was working with chris regularly. he never told me that but the secretary would. the 94 the trial was to begin at 10:00 i get a phone call from the attorney saying can you meet me tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. at the jail? what is wrong? chris is refusing to

participate in his defense. and everything that a secretary told me was all live. he only started meeting with chris one week before. i went down as 7:00 in the morning and saw him for the first time since he left my classroom not quite two years earlier. chris was withdrawn as anybody could be. i am not a clinical psychiatrist but he was depressed. i said you have to defend yourself. why won't you? he said they already have me hong. >> let's be a question please? >> i am interested in how in

a small community like overland this affected the community and how things might have changed and obviously a group of you new cynthia well, but i am sure there is the attitude if there is smoke there is fire. second, did any of the instigators of the polysar prosecutor was there a softening of a view or were they convinced and remained it was prosecutable? >> in response i will read one paragraph that is you a voice but at that moment where the community is hit with the big headlines. cendant and her family were very highly regarded. >> 1989 most people who knew cynthia were shocked by her rest.

most of us were on easy and bewildered on how to how. when a friend and i first talked about the prosecution i noticed how the voices dropped even though nobody was around except our son is kicking a soccer ball. imaginings in the at exploiting norah but only went against our instincts with everything we knew about her. once the accusation had been made, was a prosecutor claimed they depicted a child in a sexual act, and the imaginations couldn't help but go to work imaginings the worst. we have vacillated between outrage for a prosecutor we did not know and wariness toward a mother we had already admired. and wonder what pictures of us land us in jail and if she had gone too far or cross a line that we would never cross?

we felt this loyal to her for thinking such thoughts and resentful to the prosecutor for putting those images in our minds. swing -- swung between wanting to believe the best and unable to believe the worst in realized we have no idea how prosecution works. police lawyers and courts were confined to parking tickets and wells in watching perry mason. we had no idea how to help even if we wanted to. >> that is where we began. we were living in that space for a while. we did not know the pictures were and just saw the newspaper reports. nobody had seen the photographs. i felt as the mother of the boy those close to her daughter i had to do just to

show you do have to help people in need. i felt i could not get on a soapbox to say this woman is innocent but i believe she believes she is innocent and i trust that she believes that. i set up a legal defense fund is so i could raise money. she had lost her job as a school bus driver as you can imagine. and there will be paid legal fees and i think people were grateful because it gave them something to do without getting up on a soapbox. things change during the children's services case because 30 of us were subpoenaed to testify. fellow parents, soccer coach, teachers, a violin teacher, people who have standing in the community and all 30 of us were shown

the photographs and once we saw those photographs there was no doubt in our mind we had no doubt they were completely innocent and this was a complete overzealous and done just prosecution and the reach of the government into a family's life where it does not belong. that is what clarified its for everyone. we all knew somebody who trusted that they could describe them. but we still felt the hearing would go well if we would testify to do our part because the law she was alleged to have violate was different from the criminal indictment. and they had to pass the obscenity standard and to be considered obscene the

community has to decide so we would come in to testify whether or not we thought they were obscene to establish community standards. the prosecutor in the children's services case, the agency's supposed to have the well-being of the child in mind. this was the big argument. it does not matter the intent of the photographs. does not matter what she planned to do with them and it does not matter how she sees the photographs. it doesn't matter how the committee sees the photographs. it doesn't matter the context of the photographs or the context of the rest of the role or the project or their life. the only thing that matters is if this one photograph can be seen the magistrate

as a scene. if that photograph out of context with no explanation can be seen by that one person has obscene by law she is the abused child and all that comes from that should follow. most of us were not allowed to testify. because the argument was she could decide community standards for our community. she was not even elected but appointed magistrate. that galvanize the community and people who were on the fence, it kind of made it clear something wrong was going on. certainly when the community got involved, not everybody got involved but it was amazing their range of people who contributed money, fund-raisers, concert , letter to the

editor, being part of a group with rallies and petition drives in the range of people who committed their support coming expandable political spectrum, socio-economic range coming every way to think of a diverse community. >> i am curious if you can comment as a follow-up to the second part of the question, the advocate for the child was a fundamentalist christian and you were surprised she could set that aside too meet with the family to find out what was going on and became an advocate. i am curious whether religion played a role from the prosecutorial side? >> i don't think so.

there is no indication that religion had any part. a lot of people speculate what was going on from the prosecutor point* of view. i let people speculate. it is the elected position, it was the election year, porn gets good headlines prepare her community is a liberal enclave in a more conservative county. you can speculate.

like pebbles with no investigation not slowing down to ask any questions was very problematic but did they change their minds? there was a county prosecutor and his assistant he was even more ferocious

and had that reputation. when the committee started to make a ruckus in hand these happen with national media attention we reached out quietly through more conservative folks and he agreed to have a meeting with a small group of people at the church. and in that meeting those folks i think for able to get his attention to really make him think hard. that scene is described in the book and is one of the most interesting where these people tried to talk to him about this family and they share values with him but they are supporting this woman who is more on the liberal extreme. from that meeting he agreed to go into the negotiations

with her lawyer. when that happened there was a huge explosion between him and the fed chief assistant prosecutor. they were partners fighting crime over 19 years. it was such a blow up the assistant resigned as the chief prosecutor for the county. it was quite dramatic a huge fall from power. it happened over this case was astonishing to everybody. i don't think the assistant prosecutor ever changed his mind. the main prosecutor ended up having a private meeting with cynthia. it is the climax with the defendant and prosecutor maintain one on one with no lawyers present which is mind boggling.

and out of that meeting he said we will negotiate. . .