The Human Cost of Jeff Landry’s Drive to Resume Executions - Bolts
Chris Duncan’s death sentence—built on the testimony of two discredited doctors—illustrates just how faulty the system can be.
克里斯·邓肯的死刑判决是建立在两名名誉扫地的医生的证词之上的，这说明了这个制度有多么错误。
This article was produced as a collaboration between Bolts and Mother Jones .
本文是 Bolts 和 Mother Jones 合作撰写的。
On a Saturday morning in December 1993, Jimmie Christian Duncan ran to his neighbor’s house and frantically banged on the door, pleading for help.
1993 年 12 月的一个星期六早上，吉米·克里斯蒂安·邓肯 (Jimmie Christian Duncan) 跑到邻居家，疯狂地敲门，请求帮助。
He was holding the limp body of a toddler in his arms.
他怀里抱着一个婴儿软弱的身体。
The child, named Haley, belonged to Duncan’s then-girlfriend.
这个孩子名叫海莉，是邓肯当时女友的孩子。
The girl’s hair was wet.
女孩的头发湿漉漉的。
She wasn’t breathing.
她没有呼吸了。
And even after one of the neighbors tried CPR, she wouldn’t wake.
即使其中一位邻居尝试了心肺复苏，她也没有醒来。
Duncan, who goes by Chris, had just turned 25.
邓肯（化名克里斯）刚刚满 25 岁。
He had a reputation around Monroe, a small city in rural northeast Louisiana.
他在路易斯安那州东北部乡村小城市门罗附近享有盛誉。
His penchant for motorcycles and head injuries—from car accidents, dirt bike crashes, bar fights—earned him a nickname: “Deathtrap Duncan.” He fought often with Haley’s mom.
他对摩托车的热爱和头部受伤——车祸、越野车碰撞、酒吧斗殴——为他赢得了一个绰号：“死亡陷阱邓肯”。他经常和海莉的妈妈吵架。
But he also had a sweet side: He loved to cook and would let Haley sit on the kitchen counter next to him, testing whatever he made.
但他也有甜蜜的一面：他喜欢做饭，会让海莉坐在他旁边的厨房柜台上，测试他做的任何东西。
As the ambulance arrived, Chris’ distress mounted to such a degree that paramedics asked one of the neighbors to take him outside.
当救护车到达时，克里斯的痛苦达到了如此程度，以至于护理人员要求一位邻居把他带到外面。
The neighbors drove him to the hospital behind the ambulance.
邻居们用救护车把他送到了医院。
As he was waiting for news, Haley’s grandmother showed up and accosted him.
当他等待消息时，海莉的祖母出现并与他搭话。
“It’s all your fault,” he remembers her shouting.
“都是你的错，”他记得她喊道。
Trying to defuse the tension, police took him to the police station.
为了缓解紧张气氛，民警将其带回派出所。
When they told Chris that Haley was dead, he became irate and refused to believe them.
当他们告诉克里斯海莉已经死了时，他变得愤怒并拒绝相信他们。
He told officers he had given the 23-month-old a bath, then left the room to wash some dishes.
他告诉警察，他给这个 23 个月大的孩子洗了澡，然后离开房间去洗碗。
When he heard a splash and a thud, he ran into the bathroom to find her face down in the tub.
当他听到扑通扑通的声音和扑通扑通的声音时，他跑进浴室，发现她脸朝下躺在浴缸里。
In the interrogation room, he just kept repeating three words over and over: “Bring her back.”
审讯室里，他只是一遍又一遍地重复着三个字：“把她带回来。”
Detective Chris Sasser, a 13-year veteran officer working in the West Monroe Police Department, went to investigate.
在西门罗警察局工作 13 年的资深警官克里斯·萨瑟 (Chris Sasser) 侦探前去调查。
His examination of the house, a drab duplex, seemed to confirm Chris’ account: dishes in the sink, children’s toys floating in a few inches of bathwater.
他检查了这栋单调的复式住宅，似乎证实了克里斯的说法：水槽里的盘子，孩子们的玩具漂浮在几英寸深的洗澡水中。
Based on Sasser’s investigation and Chris’ statements, police decided to charge him with negligent homicide.
根据震荡波的调查和克里斯的陈述，警方决定以过失杀人罪指控他。
But later that evening, everything changed.
但那天晚上晚些时候，一切都改变了。
Sasser received a call from Steven Hayne, the Mississippi doctor tasked with the autopsy.
震荡波接到了负责尸检任务的密西西比州医生史蒂文·海恩 (Steven Hayne) 的电话。
Hayne said he and his partner, forensic odontologist Michael West, had conducted a preliminary inspection of Haley’s body.
海恩说，他和他的搭档法医牙科医生迈克尔·韦斯特对海利的尸体进行了初步检查。
Hayne reported shocking new information: The duo concluded that Haley had likely been sexually assaulted, and they had also noticed indentations speckling the little girl’s body that appeared to be human bite marks.
海恩报告了令人震惊的新信息：二人得出结论，海莉很可能遭到性侵犯，他们还注意到小女孩身上有一些凹痕，这些凹痕似乎是人类咬痕。
Hayne’s call kicked the investigation into overdrive.
海恩的电话引发了对超速驾驶的调查。
Sasser upgraded the charges against Chris to first-degree murder.
震荡波将对克里斯的指控升级为一级谋杀。
The next morning, he had a dentist come into the jail and cast Chris’ teeth, then drove the resulting dental molds to West in Mississippi.
第二天早上，他请了一位牙医来到监狱，为克里斯做了牙齿铸型，然后将制作好的牙科模具运到密西西比州的西部。
West reported a match: Various marks on Haley’s body, he concluded, had a “high correlation” and even a “positive match” with Chris’ teeth.
韦斯特报告了匹配情况：他得出结论，海莉身上的各种标记与克里斯的牙齿具有“高度相关性”，甚至“正匹配”。
Chris spent the next four years in the Ouachita Parish jail, insisting on his innocence.
克里斯在沃希托教区监狱度过了接下来的四年，坚称自己无罪。
In March 1998, his trial finally began.
1998年3月，他的审判终于开始了。
The district attorney, a powerful local figure who courted the spotlight, used language as crude as it was unsparing.
地方检察官是一位颇有影响力的地方人物，经常受到关注，他的语言既粗俗又无情。
During his opening statement, he told the jury, “The doctor’s going to tell you he rode that baby like a bull.” Haley had “screamed and she died in a bathtub full of water so bloody, you couldn’t see the bottom,” he said.
在开庭陈词中，他告诉陪审团，“医生会告诉你，他像公牛一样骑着那个婴儿。”海莉“尖叫着，死在装满水的浴缸里，血迹斑斑，你看不到底部，”他说。
“Red with blood.” The young court reporter, early in her career, sat just in front of the jurors.
“鲜血染红。”这位年轻的法庭记者正处于职业生涯的早期，就坐在陪审员面前。
She still remembers the sound of them crying behind her.
她仍然记得他们在她身后哭泣的声音。
The prosecution conjured a story of a demonic sexual frenzy, a cold-blooded decision to cover up the crime by forcibly drowning the child, silencing her for good, then a methodical obviation of the evidence.
检方编造了一个恶魔般的性狂热的故事，一个冷血的决定，通过强行淹死孩子来掩盖罪行，让她永远保持沉默，然后有条不紊地消除证据。
Because there was no other incriminating physical evidence to be found—no blood, no seminal fluid—the DA hammered on the bite marks, referencing them eight times in his opening statement.
因为没有发现其他有罪的物证——没有血液，没有精液——地方检察官在开庭陈词中八次提到了咬痕。
Chris’ lawyers tried to counter that nobody who’d examined Haley’s body before it arrived at the Mississippi morgue had noticed anything awry.
克里斯的律师试图反驳说，在海莉的尸体抵达密西西比太平间之前对其进行检查的人都没有发现任何异常。
But there was another damning factor: the testimony of a jailhouse informant who claimed Chris had confessed to him.
但还有另一个致命因素：一名监狱线人的证词，声称克里斯已经向他坦白了。
The jury deliberated for just under three hours.
陪审团审议了不到三个小时。
They prayed together.
他们一起祈祷。
And they returned their verdict: guilty of murder in the first degree.
他们做出了判决：犯有一级谋杀罪。
The DA’s characteristic bombast didn’t let up during the penalty phase, in which the 12 Ouachita Parish residents were called to decide whether Chris deserved to die.
在惩罚阶段，地方检察官特有的夸夸其谈并没有停止，在惩罚阶段，12 名沃希托教区居民被召集来决定克里斯是否该死。
“Doubt?” he said.
“怀疑？”他说。
“There’s no doubt in my mind, your mind, nobody’s mind, he did it.”
“毫无疑问，在我的脑海里，在你的脑海里，没有人的脑海里，他做到了。”
On March 18, at 6:50 pm local time, the state of Louisiana executed 46-year-old Jessie Hoffman Jr. by nitrogen hypoxia.
当地时间3月18日下午6点50分，路易斯安那州以氮气缺氧的方式处决了46岁的杰西·霍夫曼（Jessie Hoffman Jr.）。
Hoffman, a Black man from New Orleans, spent more than 26 years in Angola, where he grew close to Chris and others as a member of the death row community.
霍夫曼是一位来自新奥尔良的黑人，他在安哥拉度过了超过 26 年，作为死囚区的一员，他与克里斯和其他人的关系越来越密切。
Hoffman had become a practicing Buddhist during his time in prison.
霍夫曼在狱中成为一名佛教徒。
According to his lawyers, the state’s decision to gas him to death on Tuesday represented not just a form of torture but a violation of his religious freedom.
据他的律师称，该州周二决定用毒气杀害他不仅是一种酷刑，而且侵犯了他的宗教自由。
Hoffman’s killing marks a profound rupture in Louisiana: The state has not seen another contested execution since 2002.
霍夫曼被杀标志着路易斯安那州的深刻决裂：自 2002 年以来，该州再没有发生过有争议的处决事件。
For the past two decades, executions have effectively been dormant, thanks to the glacial pace of litigation challenging the lethal injection procedure, a short supply of the required drugs, and a slight ebb in support for the practice among the state’s voters.
在过去的二十年里，由于挑战注射死刑程序的诉讼进展缓慢、所需药物供应短缺以及该州选民对注射死刑的支持率略有下降，死刑执行实际上一直处于休眠状态。
“No one was clamoring for an execution,” Samantha Kennedy, executive director of New Orleans’ Promise of Justice Initiative, told me.
“没有人强烈要求执行死刑，”新奥尔良正义承诺倡议执行董事萨曼莎·肯尼迪告诉我。
Then, in October 2023, Jeff Landry won election as governor of Louisiana.
然后，2023 年 10 月，杰夫·兰德里 (Jeff Landry) 赢得路易斯安那州州长选举。
Landry is an ardent death penalty supporter and ally of President Donald Trump.
兰德里是死刑的热心支持者和唐纳德·特朗普总统的盟友。
He won a US House seat as part of the Tea Party wave in 2010, and after one term in Washington, he returned to Louisiana, where he served as attorney general from 2016 to 2024.
2010 年，他在茶党浪潮中赢得了美国众议院席位，在华盛顿任期结束后，他返回路易斯安那州，并于 2016 年至 2024 年担任该州总检察长。
Since taking office as governor in January 2024, Landry has signed a flurry of bills functionally abolishing parole going forward, granting police greater immunity, and moving all 17-year-olds into the adult criminal system, even those accused of minor crimes.
自 2024 年 1 月就任州长以来，兰德里签署了一系列法案，在功能上废除假释，赋予警察更大的豁免权，并将所有 17 岁的青少年纳入成人刑事体系，甚至包括那些被指控犯有轻罪的人。
But the symbolic heart of Landry’s “tough on crime” agenda has been his drive to resume state-sponsored killings.
但兰德里“严厉打击犯罪”议程的象征性核心是他推动恢复国家支持的杀戮。
In 2018, Landry had criticized then-Governor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, for not doing enough to jumpstart executions.
2018年，兰德里批评时任州长、民主党人约翰·贝尔·爱德华兹在推动处决方面做得不够。
Once governor, he did not mince words: “Capital punishment is lawful, and we intend to fulfill our legal duty to resume it,” he told legislators at the start of a special legislative session on crime that he called as one of his first official acts as governor.
担任州长后，他直言不讳：“死刑是合法的，我们打算履行恢复死刑的法律义务，”他在关于犯罪问题的特别立法会议开始时对立法者说，他称这是他作为州长的第一个正式行动之一。
The session was a blitzkrieg: Over the nine days it met, the Republican-controlled legislature reauthorized execution by electrocution and legalized nitrogen hypoxia.
这次会议是一场闪电战：在会议的九天内，共和党控制的立法机构重新授权电刑和氮气缺氧合法化。
It also passed a “secrecy statute” that shields execution procedures from scrutiny, rendering them easier to carry out and harder to challenge.
它还通过了一项“保密法规”，使执行程序免受审查，使它们更容易执行，更难受到质疑。
In February, Landry announced that the state had formalized a protocol for nitrogen killings.
二月，兰德里宣布该州已正式制定氮杀灭方案。
Three executions were quickly scheduled back to back in March.
三月份很快就安排了连续执行三起死刑。
Then, nearly as quickly, one was taken off the calendar after it became clear that the prisoner in question hadn’t exhausted his appeals.
然后，几乎同样快地，在发现相关囚犯尚未用尽他的上诉后，其中一个被从日历上删除。
Another execution scheduled for this month didn’t happen after the 81-year-old who was slated to be killed died of natural causes.
原定于本月被处决的 81 岁老人因自然原因死亡，但原定于本月执行的另一次处决并未发生。
The US Supreme Court has set legal precedent for the fact that “death is different.” Because of the finality of capital punishment, death row cases involve a lengthy appeals process that attempts to ensure that the prisoner’s rights have been upheld—that avenues of potential innocence or procedural violation have been explored, that there is truly no room left for doubt.
美国最高法院为“死亡是不同的”这一事实设定了法律先例。由于死刑的终结性，死囚案件涉及漫长的上诉程序，试图确保囚犯的权利得到维护——潜在的无罪或违反程序的途径已经得到探索，真正没有任何怀疑的余地。
This appeals process is where mistakes or misconduct leading to wrongful convictions may come to light and where exonerations typically happen.
在上诉过程中，导致错误定罪的错误或不当行为可能会被曝光，并且通常会发生无罪释放。
And Louisiana has had a stunning number of death row exonerations—11 since 1993, the year Chris was arrested.
路易斯安那州的死囚无罪释放数量惊人——自 1993 年克里斯被捕以来，有 11 名死囚被无罪释放。
But the governor appears to see these safeguards as something else: roadblocks.
但州长似乎将这些保障措施视为其他东西：障碍。
Just before Landry’s election, he publicly criticized part of the post-conviction appeal process— specifically, a new law called Act 104, signed by Edwards, that expanded pathways for prisoners to put forth a claim of innocence.
就在兰德里当选之前，他公开批评了定罪后上诉程序的一部分，特别是爱德华兹签署的一项名为《第 104 号法案》的新法律，该法律扩大了囚犯提出无罪主张的途径。
Landry called it a “woke, hug-a-thug” policy, writing: “Once a verdict has been finalized, there are no more ‘get out of jail free’ cards.”
兰德里称其为“醒来，拥抱暴徒”政策，并写道：“一旦判决最终确定，就不再有‘免狱’卡。”
Once Landry was in the governor’s mansion, the legislature followed suit.
兰德里一进州长官邸，立法机关就纷纷效仿。
During the special session on crime, lawmakers limited Act 104 and heaped on additional barriers.
在犯罪问题特别会议期间，立法者限制了第 104 号法案，并设置了更多障碍。
They also restructured the public defense board, which oversees representation for people accused of crimes that can carry the death penalty , and handed control of the new board to the governor.
他们还重组了公共辩护委员会，该委员会负责监督被控犯有可判处死刑的罪行的人的代表，并将新委员会的控制权移交给州长。
Attorney General Liz Murrill, a close Landry ally, has similarly demonstrated an eagerness to restart executions.
兰德里的亲密盟友、司法部长利兹·穆里尔（Liz Murrill）也同样表现出重启处决的渴望。
After a federal judge paused Hoffman’s execution last week, ruling that the state’s chosen method of execution would violate his constitutional rights, Murrill immediately moved to appeal , paving the way for the Fifth Circuit’s decision to overturn the ruling and send Hoffman to his death.
联邦法官上周暂停对霍夫曼的处决，裁定该州选择的处决方式侵犯了霍夫曼的宪法权利，穆里尔立即提出上诉，为第五巡回法院推翻裁决并将霍夫曼处死的决定铺平了道路。
Following Hoffman’s execution, Murrill said in a statement that justice had been “delayed for far too long” and told the Associated Press that she expects four people on Louisiana’s death row will be executed this year.
霍夫曼被处决后，穆里尔在一份声明中表示，正义“被拖延太久了”，并告诉美联社，她预计路易斯安那州死囚区的四名囚犯今年将被处决。
Murill has also taken issue with the appeals process in certain cases.
穆里尔还对某些案件的上诉程序提出了质疑。
She maintains that at least two other death row prisoners are out of relief options as well, including one man who was briefly granted a new trial only last year.
她坚称，至少还有另外两名死囚也无法获得救济，其中一名男子去年才短暂获得新的审判。
In interviews, she has suggested using both the courts and the legislature to limit post-conviction relief in the future.
在采访中，她建议利用法院和立法机关来限制未来定罪后的救济。
“All of these changes are going to make it much, much harder for lawyers for people on death row to keep them out of the execution chamber,” said Bill Quigley, a professor emeritus at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law who has studied Louisiana’s application of the death penalty and worked for years on capital appeals.
洛约拉大学新奥尔良法学院名誉教授比尔·奎格利（Bill Quigley）研究路易斯安那州死刑的适用情况，并多年来致力于死刑上诉，他说：“所有这些变化都将使死囚的律师更难将他们排除在行刑室之外。”
“People are going to be executed who wouldn’t be executed if the system was really working.”
“如果系统真的有效的话，那些不会被处决的人将会被处决。”
In 14 months, Landry transformed the state’s criminal legal system.
在 14 个月内，兰德里彻底改变了该州的刑事法律体系。
Resuming executions is shaping up to be his crowning triumph.
恢复处决将成为他的最高胜利。
Now, with the AG’s help, he’s speeding the condemned toward the execution chamber, signaling a willingness to discount the appeals process for future Louisianans along the way.
现在，在总检察长的帮助下，他正在将被判刑的人加速送入行刑室，这表明他愿意在未来的路易斯安那州人的上诉过程中打折扣。
(Neither Landry nor Murrill responded to requests for comment for this article.)
（兰德里和穆里尔都没有回应对本文发表评论的请求。）
Over 25 years on death row, Chris Duncan has relied on and benefited from the system Landry and his cohort are set to destroy.
克里斯·邓肯 (Chris Duncan) 在死囚牢房中度过了超过 25 年，一直依赖并受益于兰德里及其同伙即将摧毁的制度。
The many stages of post-conviction relief have been his primary tool in a long quest to prove his claim that Haley’s death was not an act of unthinkable violence, but a tragic accident.
定罪后的多个阶段的救济一直是他长期寻求证明他的主张的主要工具，即海莉的死亡不是难以想象的暴力行为，而是一场悲惨的事故。
Now, as he may finally get another chance to prove his innocence in court, he’s watched the state execute his close friend Jessie Hoffman—and ramp up its efforts to put to death other men he’s known for decades.
现在，他终于有机会在法庭上证明自己的清白，他目睹了国家处决了他的密友杰西·霍夫曼，并加大了处决他几十年来认识的其他人的力度。
“My fight is a fight for them too,” he said.
“我的战斗也是为他们而战，”他说。
For a long time, Chris left his jail cell when he dreamed.
很长一段时间，克里斯都是在梦中离开牢房的。
He would wander in the dreams for weeks on end—a sort of furlough of the unconscious.
他会连续几个星期在梦中徘徊——一种无意识的休假。
The effect persisted into his days, when respite was scarce.
这种影响一直持续到他的日子里，当时几乎没有喘息的机会。
“Even in my waking life,” he said, “I felt that relief of having gone to these places.”
“即使在我醒着的时候，”他说，“我也因为去了这些地方而感到轻松。”
When Chris found Haley motionless in the tub, it felt to him as though the world was ending.
当克里斯发现海莉在浴缸里一动不动时，他感觉世界末日即将来临。
Sometimes, he would replay those last moments, holding her in his arms, telling her, “Hang on, hang on,” before letting go of her tiny body for the last time and handing her to the neighbor to perform CPR .
有时，他会重温最后的时刻，将她抱在怀里，告诉她“坚持住，坚持住”，然后最后一次放开她小小的身体，把她交给邻居做心肺复苏。
He remained shocked by how quickly it had all happened and by the momentum of the state’s case against him.
他对这一切发生的速度如此之快以及州政府对他提起诉讼的势头感到震惊。
“I just was snatched out of my life,” he told me.
“我就这样被从我的生活中夺走了，”他告诉我。
“The chances that the truth comes out, it seems nonexistent…you’re just a character in someone else’s story.”
“真相大白的机会，似乎不存在……你只是别人故事中的一个角色。”
Still, the guilt over Haley’s death consumed him.
尽管如此，海莉之死的愧疚感还是吞噬了他。
After more than four years in the parish jail during the trial, it was almost a relief to get a verdict, even though the sentence was death—at least that way he’d get representation for an appeal.
在审判期间在教区监狱里呆了四年多之后，得到判决几乎是一种解脱，尽管判决是死刑——至少这样他就可以得到上诉的代表。
Chris arrived on Angola’s death row in December 1998, one of 83 Louisianans condemned to die that decade, according to the Death Penalty Census Database.
根据死刑普查数据库，克里斯于 1998 年 12 月抵达安哥拉死囚牢房，是那十年被判处死刑的 83 名路易斯安那人之一。
The 1990s were a particularly bloodthirsty period in American politics.
20世纪90年代是美国政治尤其血腥的时期。
Prosecutors, judges, and juries sent more people to prison, for longer, than any time prior.
检察官、法官和陪审团将更多人送入监狱，时间也比以往任何时候都要长。
In the US, over 3,000 people were sentenced to death and nearly 500 were executed.
在美国，有3000多人被判处死刑，近500人被处决。
Even so, Louisiana operated with particular flair.
即便如此，路易斯安那州的运作仍具有独特的天赋。
Clive Stafford Smith, a British attorney who has represented scores of Louisianans in death penalty and wrongful conviction cases, still recalls once walking into court and seeing the prosecutor wearing a necktie with a noose painted on it.
克莱夫·斯塔福德·史密斯（Clive Stafford Smith）是一名英国律师，曾在死刑和错判案件中代表数十名路易斯安那人，他仍然记得有一次走进法庭，看到检察官系着一条画着绞索的领带。
“Look, it was a nightmare back then,” he told me.
“看，当时那真是一场噩梦，”他告诉我。
Neither of Chris’ court-appointed trial lawyers had ever defended someone against the death penalty.
克里斯的法庭指定的审判律师都没有为某人辩护过，反对死刑。
(Their training was a single seminar on capital defense.) Court records indicate that their plea to the jury for mercy was lackluster at best.
（他们的训练是关于资本防御的单一研讨会。）法庭记录显示，他们向陪审团求饶的恳求充其量也只是乏善可陈。
Even after someone is found guilty in a capital case, the jury may still decide to spare them, but a good mitigation argument—one that explores and contextualizes a defendant’s childhood, mental state, and trauma or abuse they’ve endured—is critical.
即使某人在死刑案件中被判有罪，陪审团仍可能决定赦免他们，但一个好的减刑论据——探索被告的童年、精神状态以及他们所遭受的创伤或虐待并将其置于背景中——是至关重要的。
According to Chris’ 2008 petition for post-conviction relief, there was ample material from his past that his original attorneys failed to highlight: his biological mother’s six marriages, including one to a man who beat her while she was pregnant with Chris; his many head injuries; his struggles with drugs.
根据克里斯 2008 年定罪后救济的请愿书，他的原律师未能强调他过去的大量材料：他的亲生母亲的六次婚姻，其中一次与一名在她怀克里斯时殴打她的男人；他的头部多处受伤；他与毒品的斗争。
When it came to character witnesses, the lawyers skipped over Chris’ family but called casual acquaintances from his life, as well as former cellmates who simply testified that Chris read the Bible when they were in jail together.
当谈到品格证人时，律师们跳过了克里斯的家人，而是打电话给了他生活中的熟人，以及前狱友，他们只是证明克里斯在监狱里时读过圣经。
None of this was particularly out of line with the norms of the time.
所有这些都没有特别不符合当时的规范。
Although prosecutors in Louisiana enjoyed generous funding, in those days, there was a rule that state-appointed defense could spend no more than $1,000 on a given case, all told.
尽管路易斯安那州的检察官享受着慷慨的资助，但当时有一条规定，即州指定的辩护律师在一个特定案件上的花费总计不得超过 1,000 美元。
“You get what you pay for,” Stafford Smith said.
“一分钱一分货，”斯塔福德史密斯说。
Quigley told me a typical capital defense at the time was “like having heart surgery [done] by an EMT.”
奎格利告诉我，当时典型的资本防御“就像急救人员[完成]心脏手术”。
And so this drastic imbalance in resources had predictable results.
因此，这种资源的严重不平衡产生了可预见的结果。
Even in the most retributive states, only a tiny percentage of people convicted of murder get the death penalty.
即使在报复性最强的州，只有极少数被判谋杀罪的人被判处死刑。
People tend to think of death row as the “worst of the worst,” but the Louisianans who ended up there—even if they had no claims to be innocent—were very often victims themselves earlier in life.
人们往往认为死囚牢房是“最坏的人中最坏的人”，但最终被送进死牢的路易斯安那人——即使他们没有声称自己是无辜的——往往自己早年就是受害者。
They were almost always very poor, they were disproportionately Black, and many had survived horrific childhoods.
他们几乎总是非常贫穷，其中黑人比例过高，许多人都度过了可怕的童年。
Chris had a turbulent youth, but compared to most of the guys around him, he thought himself lucky.
克里斯有一个动荡的青年时代，但与他周围的大多数人相比，他认为自己很幸运。
There were men there who had suffered abuse and neglect, who were severely mentally ill, who were functionally illiterate.
那里的一些人遭受过虐待和忽视，患有严重的精神疾病，甚至是文盲。
“There’s two things you can’t take out of the system,” Quigley told me.
“有两件事你不能从系统中删除，”奎格利告诉我。
“One is race and the other is money.”
“一个是种族，另一个是金钱。”
Louisiana’s death row is not only a cross-section of its most marginalized populations, but it also has a staggering rate of wrongful convictions.
路易斯安那州的死囚区不仅集中了最边缘化的人口，而且误判率也高得惊人。
Between 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated in the US, and 2015, more than 80 percent of people condemned to death in Louisiana eventually had their sentences reversed.
从 1976 年美国恢复死刑到 2015 年，路易斯安那州 80% 以上的死刑犯最终都被改判。
“The stakes of life and death are just too high for that,” Quigley said.
奎格利说：“生死攸关的风险太高了。”
The state killed Dobie Gillis Williams , a 38-year-old Black man, in 1999, just over a month after Chris arrived on death row.
1999 年，就在克里斯被送进死囚牢房一个多月后，该州杀害了 38 岁的黑人多比·吉利斯·威廉姆斯 (Dobie Gillis Williams)。
Williams had met with Sister Helen Prejean, the famous New Orleans nun and anti-death penalty activist, who believed there were enough issues with his case that he should not be executed.
威廉姆斯会见了新奥尔良著名修女、反死刑活动家海伦·普雷让修女，她认为他的案件存在足够多的问题，不应该处决他。
The day he was put to death, what shocked Chris the most was how blasé everyone appeared—guards and prisoners alike.
在他被处决的那天，最让克里斯震惊的是每个人都显得无精打采——无论是看守还是囚犯。
To the people around him, he thought, it seemed like just another day.
他想，对于他周围的人来说，这似乎只是又一天。
But then again, most of them had been through this before.
但话又说回来，他们中的大多数人以前都经历过这种情况。
By the turn of the 21st century, Louisiana had begun to reevaluate its approach to death penalty cases.
到了 21 世纪初，路易斯安那州开始重新评估其处理死刑案件的方法。
The state established general standards for capital representation, created a right to counsel during post-conviction proceedings, and funded organizations dedicated to capital appeals (though money would remain an ongoing battle).
国家制定了资本代表的一般标准，规定了在定罪后诉讼期间获得律师帮助的权利，并资助致力于资本上诉的组织（尽管金钱仍然是一场持续的斗争）。
When lawyers from these organizations began to take a second look at some of the death row convictions, they found blatant oversights and errors.
当这些组织的律师开始重新审查一些死囚定罪时，他们发现了明显的疏忽和错误。
Stafford Smith took on the case of Shareef Cousin, a young Black man who’d been sent to Angola at 16 for murder.
斯塔福德·史密斯接手了谢里夫·库辛 (Shareef Cousin) 的案件，他是一位年轻的黑人男子，16 岁时因谋杀罪被送往安哥拉。
Stafford Smith discovered, among other issues, that the detective investigating the case was the one who called in a tip saying Cousin did it.
斯塔福德·史密斯发现，除其他问题外，调查此案的侦探就是举报举报表弟所为的人。
The Louisiana Supreme Court later overturned the conviction.
路易斯安那州最高法院后来推翻了这一判决。
John Thompson, a Black New Orleanian on the row alongside Chris, was just 30 days from execution when an investigator uncovered evidence of innocence that the DA had withheld from the defense.
约翰·汤普森 (John Thompson) 是一名新奥尔良黑人，与克里斯同案，距离处决仅 30 天，一名调查员发现了地方检察官向辩方隐瞒的无罪证据。
In 2003, Thompson walked free.
2003年，汤普森重获自由。
In total, nine people have been let off Louisiana’s death row since Chris arrived there.
自克里斯抵达路易斯安那州死囚牢房以来，共有九人被释放。
Three of those cases involved the presence of false or misleading forensic evidence.
其中三起案件涉及虚假或误导性法医证据的存在。
Every one of them involved official misconduct.
其中每一项都涉及官方不当行为。
“The DAs were cheating to get these convictions,” Kennedy said.
“地方检察官为了获得这些定罪而作弊，”肯尼迪说。
And although it may seem like these exonerations show the system is working , they came only after decades of wrongful incarceration.
尽管这些无罪似乎表明该制度正在发挥作用，但它们只是在数十年的错误监禁之后才出现的。
Jee Park, executive director of the Innocence Project New Orleans, told me she’s haunted by the knowledge that there were probably cases the system didn’t catch before someone was executed.
新奥尔良清白项目执行董事 Jee Park 告诉我，她知道系统可能在有人被处决之前没有捕获到某些案件，这让她心神不宁。
“It’s the unknown—the number of people we don’t know who were killed by the state,” she said.
“这是未知数——我们不知道有多少人被国家杀害，”她说。
For Chris, the hardest death to bear was Les Martin, a man who had been like a mentor to him.
对于克里斯来说，最难以忍受的死亡是莱斯·马丁，一个对他来说就像导师一样的人。
During their last conversation, he couldn’t bring himself to tell Martin goodbye.
在他们最后一次谈话时，他无法向马丁告别。
“I didn’t stand there with this story of I’m never going to see you again ,” he said.
“我站在那里并不是说我再也见不到你了，”他说。
“I just embraced him, let him know I appreciated all I learned from him, and I hoped to see him in a few days.”
“我只是拥抱了他，让他知道我很感激从他身上学到的一切，我希望几天后能见到他。”
Chris itched watching as other men convicted before him walked free.
克里斯看着其他在他之前被定罪的人获得自由，心里感到痒痒的。
Every time he thought about the “false reality” the state had imposed on him, he got wound up, his heartbeat racing.
每当他想到国家强加给他的“虚假现实”时，他就会激动不已，心跳加速。
At some point, he realized that his obsession was eating him alive.
在某个时刻，他意识到他的痴迷正在把他活活吞噬。
But there was little else to focus on.
但除此之外就没什么可关注的了。
For years, the men were kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day.
多年来，这些人每天 23 小时都被单独监禁。
Chris had spent childhood summers at a swamp near an old forest left miraculously untouched by the incursions of logging companies.
克里斯在一个古老森林附近的沼泽地度过了童年的夏天，奇迹般地没有受到伐木公司入侵的影响。
There were cypress trees and oaks as tall as buildings with ropes of Spanish moss hanging down—nature’s cathedral, he called it.
那里有像建筑物一样高的柏树和橡树，上面垂挂着一串串西班牙苔藓——他称之为大自然的大教堂。
He guessed that almost no one besides him, his grandfather, and a few uncles had ever laid eyes on those trees.
他猜想，除了他、他的祖父和几个叔叔之外，几乎没有人见过那些树。
In quiet moments in his cell, he dreamt about wandering out into the bayou and finding a fallen limb to lie back on and listen to the sounds of wildlife reverberate around him.
在牢房里的安静时刻，他梦想着漫步到河口，找到一根倒下的肢体躺下来，聆听野生动物在他周围回响的声音。
He thought about holidays with his family: multiple generations all crowded around, the women churning out delicious cakes and pies.
他想到了与家人一起度假的情景：几代人都挤在周围，女人们制作着美味的蛋糕和馅饼。
But the more he ran it back in his mind, the more he realized how far away this world had become.
但他越是回想，就越发现这个世界已经变得多么遥远。
What was real was Angola: the cinder-block walls around him; the bark of the guards; the metallic clang of the doors; and, somewhere off in the distance, the execution chamber.
真实的是安哥拉：他周围的煤渣砖墙；他的周围。守卫的吠声；门的金属叮当声；远处的某个地方，是行刑室。
At some point, he mostly stopped hoping.
在某个时刻，他几乎不再抱希望了。
After more than a decade of incarceration, “everything that you could say was Chris Duncan didn’t exist except for a body in a cage anymore,” he told me.
经过十多年的监禁，“除了笼子里的尸体之外，你所能说的克里斯·邓肯的一切都不存在了，”他告诉我。
Often, he felt like execution might be an act of mercy.
他常常觉得处决可能是一种仁慈之举。
Back in 2001, Chris had lost his direct appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court, the automatic first step in the lengthy appeal process that must be exhausted before execution.
早在 2001 年，克里斯就向路易斯安那州最高法院直接上诉失败，这是漫长的上诉程序中自动的第一步，在执行之前必须用尽上诉程序。
But in late 2007, Chris was assigned lawyers to work on his post-conviction review—the next stage in the process.
但在 2007 年底，克里斯被指派律师进行定罪后审查——该过程的下一阶段。
The new legal team began digging into boxes and boxes of files: all the DA’s and the original defense attorneys’ papers from the investigation and trial.
新的法律团队开始翻阅一箱又一箱的文件：调查和审判中所有地方检察官和原始辩护律师的文件。
They met with Chris at Angola regularly, and he tried to share with them everything he could think of that might be helpful for their search.
他们定期在安哥拉与克里斯会面，克里斯试图与他们分享他能想到的对他们的搜索可能有帮助的一切。
One day, the lawyers turned up a VHS tape in the files.
有一天，律师们在档案中发现了一盘 VHS 录像带。
It turned out to be a recording of Haley’s autopsy made by Michael West, the forensic odontologist whose observations about the bite marks helped lead police to upgrade the charges against Chris to first-degree murder.
事实证明，这是法医牙科医生迈克尔·韦斯特对海莉尸检的记录，他对咬痕的观察帮助警方将对克里斯的指控升级为一级谋杀。
The video had never been shown at trial.
该视频从未在审判时播放过。
After the state initially tried to withhold it, Chris’ trial attorneys objected, and it was eventually handed over.
在州政府最初试图扣押后，克里斯的出庭律师表示反对，最终被移交。
But for some reason, the attorneys never tried to present it to the jury.
但出于某种原因，律师们从未试图将其呈现给陪审团。
When the post-conviction lawyers played the VHS tape, they were horrified.
当定罪后的律师播放录像带时，他们感到震惊。
At the beginning of the recording, Haley’s body lies peacefully on a table.
录音开始时，海莉的尸体安静地躺在桌子上。
Her face, virtually unblemished, has a serene expression, almost like she’s asleep.
她的脸几乎没有任何瑕疵，表情平静，几乎就像睡着了一样。
There’s a jump in the video, and West gets started with his analysis.
视频中出现了一个跳跃，韦斯特开始进行他的分析。
He’s filming himself holding the mold of Chris’ teeth and matching it to different areas of Haley’s body.
他正在拍摄自己拿着克里斯牙齿的模型，并将其与海莉身体的不同部位进行匹配。
He doesn’t just compare it, though.
不过，他不只是比较。
He pushes the mold against her body, stretching and scraping it over her skin.
他将模具推到她的身上，在她的皮肤上拉伸和刮擦。
And he does it over and over again—over 50 times in a nine-minute span.
他会一遍又一遍地重复这个动作——在 9 分钟内重复了 50 多次。
West is ostensibly using a technique that he personally developed, called “direct comparison.” But it doesn’t look at all like he’s simply checking the mold against marks that are already there.
韦斯特表面上使用的是他个人开发的一种技术，称为“直接比较”。但看起来他并不只是简单地对照已有的标记来检查模具。
It looks like he’s using Chris’ mold to create those marks himself.
看起来他正在使用克里斯的模具自己制作这些标记。
The original forensic odontologist expert for the defense, the legal team realized, had never seen this video.
法律团队意识到，最初的辩护牙医法医专家从未看过这段视频。
Neither had the forensic odontologist who testified for the prosecution at trial that the marks on Haley were human bites.
在审判中为检方作证的法医牙科医生也没有证明海莉身上的痕迹是人类咬伤的。
They only ever saw photos of her body after West was through with it.
他们只是在韦斯特结束后才看到她尸体的照片。
In 1993, when Steven Hayne, the doctor who conducted the autopsy on Haley, first brought West in to review what he said were bite marks he’d seen on the girl’s body, both men were well-regarded medical professionals hoping to expand their business from Mississippi into Louisiana.
1993 年，对海莉进行尸检的医生史蒂文·海恩 (Steven Hayne) 第一次带韦斯特来检查他所说的在女孩身上看到的咬痕，两人都是备受尊敬的医疗专业人士，希望将业务从密西西比州扩展到路易斯安那州。
Bite mark evidence was a burgeoning subfield of forensic science; matching had been employed to great fanfare in Ted Bundy’s murder trial.
咬痕证据是法医学的一个新兴子领域。在特德·邦迪的谋杀案审判中，匹配法被大肆宣传。
Pioneering dentists in the field raised their profiles by evangelizing the practice.
该领域的先驱牙医通过传播这一实践来提高自己的知名度。
By the time the video emerged, though, that had begun to change.
然而，当视频出现时，情况已经开始发生变化。
West’s reputation had already curdled by the time of Chris’ trial in 1998, when the prosecution elected to present a different forensic odontologist as its expert.
1998 年克里斯受审时，检方选择了另一位法医牙科医生作为专家，韦斯特的声誉已经岌岌可危。
West frequently made preposterous claims about his expertise and peddled methods that strained credulity.
韦斯特经常对他的专业知识做出荒谬的说法，并兜售令人难以置信的方法。
After multiple professional complaints—filed, incidentally, by one of Chris’ lawyers on behalf of his other clients—and various media exposés, West was suspended or forced to resign from several major forensic odontologist organizations.
在多次专业投诉（顺便说一句，克里斯的一位律师代表他的其他客户提出）和各种媒体曝光后，韦斯特被停职或被迫从几个主要法医牙科医生组织辞职。
Hayne faced similar scrutiny.
海恩也面临着类似的审查。
In October 2007, investigative journalist Radley Balko wrote a piece for Reason tearing apart the doctor’s track record.
2007 年 10 月，调查记者拉德利·巴尔科 (Radley Balko) 为 Reason 撰写了一篇文章，揭露了这位医生的记录。
It came on the heels of another story he’d written looking into West’s involvement in a Mississippi case very similar to Chris’: the alleged rape and murder of a little girl, bite marks, a video hidden from the jury.
在此之前，他写了另一篇报道，调查韦斯特参与的密西西比案件，与克里斯的案件非常相似：涉嫌强奸和谋杀一名小女孩、咬痕、一段对陪审团隐藏的视频。
In these investigations, Balko describes Hayne and West as expert witnesses willing to produce conclusions that were favorable to prosecutors but completely devoid of scientific rigor.
在这些调查中，巴尔科将海恩和韦斯特描述为专家证人，愿意得出有利于检察官但完全缺乏科学严谨性的结论。
Balko wrote that one of West’s pet phrases was “indeed and without a doubt.”
巴尔科写道，韦斯特的口头禅之一是“确实且毫无疑问”。
The following year, the man at the center of the Mississippi bite mark case was exonerated—along with another Black Mississippian convicted based on Hayne and West’s work.
第二年，密西西比州咬痕案的中心人物被无罪释放，另一名密西西比黑人也因海恩和韦斯特的工作而被定罪。
It wasn’t just Hayne and West, though: Bite mark analysis itself was being debunked.
不过，不仅仅是海恩和韦斯特：咬痕分析本身就被揭穿了。
As of last year, Balko told me, “every single scientific body to evaluate the merit of bite mark analysis has said there’s no scientific merit to it whatsoever.” During a 2012 deposition, even West changed his tune, saying, “I no longer believe in bite mark analysis.
巴尔科告诉我，截至去年，“每个评估咬痕分析优点的科学机构都表示，它没有任何科学价值。”在 2012 年的一次证词中，就连 West 也改变了态度，他说：“我不再相信咬痕分析。
I don’t think it should be used in court,” though he would later continue to defend the practice in media interviews.
我认为不应该在法庭上使用它，”尽管他后来在媒体采访中继续为这种做法辩护。
Today, it routinely gets dismissed as junk science.
如今，它经常被视为垃圾科学而被忽视。
“This bite mark stuff—it’s, I think the legal term is total bullshit ,” Stafford Smith said.
“这种咬痕的东西——我认为法律术语完全是胡说八道，”斯塔福德·史密斯说。
But the courts have not kept up with this evolution in scientific consensus, what Balko calls a “direct contradiction between what science says and what the law says.”
但法院并没有跟上科学共识的演变，巴尔科称之为“科学所说与法律所说之间的直接矛盾”。
Chris’ post-conviction lawyers didn’t know much of this back when they found the video, but they felt certain that it clearly depicted West engaging in malfeasance.
克里斯定罪后的律师在发现这段视频时对此并不太了解，但他们确信它清楚地描绘了韦斯特的渎职行为。
It was a seismic turn of events.
这是一个巨大的事件转变。
Under further scrutiny, other core elements of the case seemed to unravel.
经过进一步的审查，该案的其他核心要素似乎已解开。
The legal team found documents in the DA’s files undermining the jailhouse snitch’s testimony—ones that had never been turned over to the defense.
法律团队在地方检察官的档案中发现了一些文件，这些文件破坏了监狱告密者的证词，而这些证词从未移交给辩方。
When they tracked down another man who’d been in the same cell with Chris that day, he said he only remembered Chris sobbing and repeatedly professing his innocence.
当他们找到那天与克里斯关在同一牢房的另一名男子时，他说他只记得克里斯抽泣着，并反复声称自己是无辜的。
These revelations had a profound effect on Chris; slowly, he began to emerge from the depths of his depression.
这些启示对克里斯产生了深远的影响。慢慢地，他开始从抑郁的深渊中走出来。
At some point, the dreams in which he’d float away from the prison ceased.
在某个时刻，他飘离监狱的梦想停止了。
He realized he didn’t need them anymore.
他意识到他不再需要它们了。
At the end of 2008, Chris’ legal team filed a roughly 300-page petition for post-conviction relief.
2008 年底，克里斯的法律团队提交了一份大约 300 页的定罪后救济请愿书。
The following spring, Balko published a long article for Reason about the case.
第二年春天，巴尔科在《Reason》杂志上发表了一篇关于此案的长文。
The article included the West autopsy tape.
这篇文章包括韦斯特尸检录像带。
“To me, that video is incredibly damning,” Balko told me.
“对我来说，那个视频令人难以置信，”巴尔科告诉我。
In early 2009, the National Academy of Sciences published a watershed report on forensics that questioned the scientific validity of bite mark evidence.
2009 年初，美国国家科学院发表了一份法医学分水岭报告，质疑咬痕证据的科学有效性。
(Hayne died in 2020.
（海恩于 2020 年去世。
West did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.)
韦斯特没有回应对本文发表评论的多次请求。）
For the first time, it seemed like Chris’ fortunes might be shifting, but the process was agonizingly slowgoing.
第一次，克里斯的命运似乎正在发生转变，但这个过程却进展得令人痛苦地缓慢。
Balko would keep writing pieces, methodically debunking Hayne and West’s methods and investigating their other questionable cases, eventually co-authoring a book on the duo .
巴尔科继续撰写文章，有条不紊地揭穿海恩和韦斯特的方法，并调查他们其他可疑的案件，最终共同撰写了一本关于两人的书。
At least 11 other prisoners condemned on the basis of West and Hayne’s work and testimony would be exonerated or have charges against them dropped.
至少还有 11 名因韦斯特和海恩的工作和证词而被定罪的囚犯将被无罪释放或撤销对他们的指控。
Dozens of other exonerations of people convicted based on bite mark evidence would follow, too.
随后，数十名因咬痕证据而被定罪的人也被无罪释放。
On Chris’ end, there were a few hearings, another early-morning drive from Angola up to a courthouse.
克里斯这边，有几场听证会，另一场清晨从安哥拉开车前往法院。
And then—nothing.
然后——什么也没有。
It was almost worse, he felt, than the years when only his friends and family believed in his innocence.
他觉得，这比只有他的朋友和家人相信他清白的那些年还要糟糕。
Now, he said, it felt like “the whole world knows, but you still wake up every day in prison.”
他说，现在感觉就像“全世界都知道了，但你仍然每天在监狱里醒来。”
Scott Greene, a corporate attorney in Atlanta who came onto the case as pro bono counsel, told me that the attorneys continued to discover “jaw-dropping” details that undermined the validity of Chris’ original conviction over the next several years.
亚特兰大的公司律师斯科特·格林（Scott Greene）作为无偿律师参与此案，他告诉我，律师们继续发现“令人瞠目结舌”的细节，这些细节在接下来的几年里破坏了克里斯最初定罪的有效性。
“We kept shaking our heads: How can all these things have happened in one man’s case?
“我们不断摇头：怎么会发生在一个人的身上？
This is incredible!” he told me.
这太不可思议了！”他告诉我。
“And Chris had been trying to tell us that from day one.”
“克里斯从第一天起就一直试图告诉我们这一点。”
In 2018, after decades in solitary confinement, the men on Angola’s death row were granted more freedom of movement inside.
2018年，在经历了数十年的单独监禁后，安哥拉死囚牢房中的囚犯获得了更多的内部行动自由。
Along with several others, Chris began attending a weekly prison ministry.
克里斯和其他几个人一起开始参加每周一次的监狱事工。
He had never liked school, but now he became a registered academic tutor and started teaching classes three times a week.
他从来不喜欢上学，但现在他成为了一名注册学术导师，开始每周教三堂课。
“You never had time to find out who you lined up with spiritually, who you lined up with philosophically—until they opened the doors,” he told me.
“你从来没有时间去发现你在精神上与谁站在一起，在哲学上你与谁站在一起——直到他们打开了大门，”他告诉我。
During this same period, Louisiana’s criminal justice system was undergoing a significant evolution.
同一时期，路易斯安那州的刑事司法系统正在经历重大演变。
In 2017, the state enacted a landmark package of reforms intended to strip it of its dubious distinction as the “prison capital” of the world.
2017年，该州实施了一项具有里程碑意义的改革方案，旨在摆脱其作为世界“监狱之都”的可疑地位。
The bills were championed by Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards, but they passed with bipartisan support, leading to a 24 percent drop in overall incarceration within five years.
这些法案得到了民主党州长约翰·贝尔·爱德华兹 (John Bel Edwards) 的支持，但在两党支持下获得通过，五年内总体监禁率下降了 24%。
In 2021, Edwards signed Act 104, the law that dramatically expanded eligibility for factual innocence claims, including for those on death row.
2021 年，爱德华兹签署了第 104 号法案，该法案大幅扩大了事实无罪主张的资格，包括死刑犯的资格。
By this point, Chris had yet another team of lawyers.
至此，克里斯又拥有了另一支律师团队。
This legislative change meant that they could now construct an argument around new revelations about Hayne and West’s conduct, the latest scientific consensus on bite mark analysis, and other advances in forensic understanding that undermined the rape allegations.
这一立法变化意味着他们现在可以围绕海恩和韦斯特行为的新披露、关于咬痕分析的最新科学共识，以及法医理解方面的其他进展来构建论证，这些进展削弱了强奸指控。
It was a huge breakthrough.
这是一个巨大的突破。
The attorneys filed their factual innocence petition at the end of 2022.
律师于 2022 年底提交了无罪请愿书。
A few months later, something unexpected happened: With less than 10 months to go before the end of his final term, Edwards announced that he opposed the death penalty, as he couldn’t square it with his Catholic faith.
几个月后，意想不到的事情发生了：距离最后任期结束还有不到 10 个月，爱德华兹宣布他反对死刑，因为他无法与自己的天主教信仰相一致。
Sensing a rare opportunity, and acutely aware that Republican Jeff Landry was likely to win the election come October, Louisiana’s capital defense lawyers sprang into action.
路易斯安那州的首都辩护律师意识到这是一个难得的机会，并敏锐地意识到共和党人杰夫·兰德里很可能赢得十月份的选举，因此立即采取了行动。
In June, they filed clemency petitions to the Louisiana Board of Pardons on behalf of 56 of the 57 people on death row, including Chris.
6 月，他们代表 57 名死囚中的 56 人向路易斯安那州赦免委员会提交了宽大处理申请，其中包括克里斯。
“The 56 people that are on death row are there because of a broken system,” Jim Boren, a longtime defense attorney and former president of the Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, told a local radio station.
长期担任辩护律师、路易斯安那州刑事辩护律师协会前主席吉姆·博伦 (Jim Boren) 告诉当地一家广播电台：“56 名死囚之所以被关在死囚牢房，是因为系统出了问题。”
“Eighty percent of the people convicted of death have been exonerated or their cases reversed.
“百分之八十被判死刑的人已被无罪释放或案件被撤销。
So we have an 80 percent error rate .”
所以我们的错误率是 80%。”
Behind the scenes, the men on death row grappled with conflicting emotions.
在幕后，死囚们与矛盾的情绪作斗争。
Some were initially reluctant to seek clemency: Life without parole felt like cold comfort when they believed they deserved a new trial.
有些人最初不愿意寻求宽大处理：当他们认为自己应该接受新的审判时，没有假释的生活感觉就像冰冷的安慰。
And some of the men beseeched their lawyers to prioritize the cases of Jessie Hoffman and Chris Sepulvado, who were first on the list to be executed.
其中一些人恳求他们的律师优先处理杰西·霍夫曼和克里斯·塞普尔瓦多的案件，他们是第一个被处决的人。
But Landry, then attorney general, issued an opinion and filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the pardon board from considering the clemency petitions.
但时任总检察长兰德里发表意见并提起诉讼，试图阻止赦免委员会考虑宽大处理申请。
The move would stop them from ever reaching Edwards’ desk.
此举将阻止他们到达爱德华兹的办公桌。
A few prisoners got administrative hearings, a perfunctory first step that nevertheless yielded astonishing testimony.
一些囚犯参加了行政听证会，这是敷衍的第一步，但却产生了令人惊讶的证词。
Speaking on behalf of one long-term death row resident, a close friend of Chris’, one former death row guard wrote the board that he had so much confidence in the man that “I would move him into my home with my wife and children.” But over and over again, the board voted to deny a full hearing.
克里斯的一位密友、一名前死囚看守代表一名长期死囚在董事会上写道，他对这个人非常有信心，“我会把他搬到我的家里，和我的妻子和孩子一起住。”但董事会一次又一次投票拒绝举行全面听证会。
In October, with just over a third of registered voters showing up at the polls, Landry was elected handily.
十月份，兰德里在投票站投票的登记选民中只有超过三分之一，轻松当选。
With Landry in office, the prospect of mass clemency was all but dead.
兰德里上任后，大规模宽大处理的希望几乎荡然无存。
But the same issues as before—shoddy lawyering, prosecutorial misconduct, bogus forensics—were still cropping up and undermining convictions.
但与以前一样的问题——劣质律师、检察官不当行为、伪造的法证——仍然不断出现，并损害定罪。
In May 2024, Chris was granted a new evidentiary hearing.
2024 年 5 月，克里斯获得了新的证据听证会许可。
A judge would evaluate whether the factual innocence petition his lawyers had presented possessed enough evidence to merit a new trial.
法官将评估他的律师提交的无罪请愿书是否拥有足够的证据值得重新审判。
It would be the first real momentum his case had in more than 13 years.
这将是他的案子 13 年来第一次真正出现势头。
The hearing was set for late September.
听证会定于九月下旬举行。
It would coincide with a grim milestone: For the first time in decades, five executions were being carried out around the country in a seven-day span.
这将与一个严峻的里程碑同时发生：数十年来首次在全国范围内7天内执行了5次处决。
In Missouri, Marcellus Williams would be executed for crimes that he always maintained he did not commit.
在密苏里州，马塞勒斯·威廉姆斯将因他一直坚称自己没有犯下的罪行而被处决。
Alabama would put Alan Miller to death using nitrogen gas —an omen of Louisiana’s future now that Landry was in charge.
阿拉巴马州将用氮气处死艾伦·米勒——这是兰德里掌管路易斯安那州未来的预兆。
Last spring, a longtime lawyer who volunteers at Angola told me that watching the men he worked with weekly go to the execution chamber would be too much to bear.
去年春天，一位在安哥拉做志愿者的长期律师告诉我，看着每周与他一起工作的人被送进行刑室实在难以忍受。
But he harbored no illusions about Landry.
但他对兰德里不抱任何幻想。
“This man we have right now, you’re gonna need a freight train to stop him,” he said.
“我们现在有这个人，你需要一列货运列车来阻止他，”他说。
Back in Chris’s hometown of Monroe, not much had changed but time.
回到克里斯的家乡门罗，除了时间之外，没有发生太大变化。
The same court reporter who’d been on the original trial as a novice was reprising her role covering this new hearing, now an unflappable veteran.
这位在最初的审判中作为新手参与的法庭记者在这次新的听证会上重新扮演了她的角色，现在她已经是一位镇定自若的老手了。
She remembered from the trial that she and Chris were essentially the same age, and she was startled by how much older he looked when they brought him in—his face lined and tired, his black hair shot through with gray.
她记得审判中她和克里斯的年龄基本相同，当他们把他带进来时，她惊讶地发现他看起来老了很多——他的脸上布满皱纹，疲惫不堪，黑发中夹杂着灰白。
“I guess I’m 30 years older, too,” she told me.
“我想我也老了 30 岁了，”她告诉我。
The goal of the hearing was to determine whether Chris had amassed enough new evidence of his innocence since the initial trial to merit an entirely new one.
听证会的目的是确定克里斯自初次审判以来是否收集了足够的新证据证明自己无罪，值得提出全新的证据。
His lawyers, now including Scott Greene, had lined up a crop of expert witnesses to testify about everything from Hayne and West’s misconduct to the discrediting of bite mark evidence and the original lawyers’ inability to mount an effective defense.
他的律师，现在包括斯科特·格林（Scott Greene），已经召集了一批专家证人来作证，从海恩和韦斯特的不当行为到对咬痕证据的怀疑，以及最初的律师无法进行有效的辩护。
One witness, a former president of the American Board of Forensic Odontology (ABFO), lost his faith following the landmark 2009 National Academy of Sciences report, which led him to co-run a study in which dozens of ABFO-certified bite mark analysts reviewed 100 cases and were largely unable to agree on what could be identified as a human bite mark.
一位目击者是美国法医牙科学委员会 (ABFO) 的前主席，在 2009 年美国国家科学院发表具有里程碑意义的报告后，他失去了信心。该报告促使他与他人共同开展了一项研究，其中数十名经过 ABFO 认证的咬痕分析师审查了 100 个病例，但对于什么可以被识别为人类咬痕，基本上无法达成一致。
For him, the results were “devastating,” and he resigned from the ABFO soon after.
对他来说，结果是“毁灭性的”，他很快就从 ABFO 辞职了。
“It’s a fraud,” he told the judge.
“这是一个骗局，”他告诉法官。
Another forensic odontologist spoke of seeing the West video for the first time: “I was astounded, and not in a good way.”
另一位法医牙科医生谈到第一次看到西方视频时说：“我很震惊，而且不是很好。”
On the first morning in court, one of Chris’ attorneys approached the bench to hand the judge the original VHS tape of the now-infamous West bite mark analysis—which Chris had still never seen.
出庭的第一天早上，克里斯的一位律师走近法官席，将现在臭名昭著的韦斯特咬痕分析的原始 VHS 录像带交给了法官，而克里斯仍然从未见过。
The appearance of the tape had an almost talismanic effect.
胶带的出现几乎具有护身符的效果。
A few members of Haley’s parents’ families were in court for the hearing, and one, a burly man with a “We the People” tattoo, reflexively drew his arm around his wife.
海莉父母的几名家人出席了法庭听证会，其中一名身材魁梧、身上有“我们人民”纹身的男子本能地用手臂搂住了妻子。
Chris dropped his head, covering his brow with his hands.
克里斯低下头，用手捂住额头。
As the video played in court, showing West pressing the mold of Chris’ teeth over and over into the little girl’s body, he felt violently ill.
当法庭上播放视频时，韦斯特将克里斯的牙齿模具一遍又一遍地按入小女孩的身体，他感到剧烈不适。
“Those images are part of an ongoing nightmare,” he told me later.
“这些图像是一场持续不断的噩梦的一部分，”他后来告诉我。
“This girl was precious.”
“这个女孩很珍贵。”
“Mr. Duncan is the last victim of Dr. Hayne and Dr. West on death row across the country,” Greene told the judge.
“邓肯先生是海恩博士和韦斯特博士在全国死囚牢房中的最后一位受害者，”格林告诉法官。
If the jury had seen the video back in 1998, he wondered, “Would one juror have found reasonable doubt?
他想知道，如果陪审团在 1998 年就看到了这段视频，“一位陪审员会发现合理的怀疑吗？
Unquestionably.”
毫无疑问。”
The hearing lasted six days, and after that, the only thing to do was wait.
听证会持续了六天，之后唯一能做的就是等待。
The judge was expected to hand down his decision within months of the hearing, but as of the date this article was published, no decision has been issued.
预计法官将在听证会后的几个月内做出决定，但截至本文发表之日，尚未做出任何决定。
In November, Chris turned 56, marking the 31 st birthday he had spent incarcerated and another day in limbo between two possible futures.
11 月，克里斯满 56 岁，这是他在监狱中度过的 31 岁生日，也是在两种可能的未来之间徘徊的一天。
In the one in which he gets a new trial, his lawyers intend to prove his innocence once and for all; at some point in the future, he could walk out of Angola’s gates an exonerated man.
在他接受新的审判时，他的律师打算一劳永逸地证明他的清白。在未来的某个时刻，他可能会以一个无罪的人走出安哥拉的大门。
“I plan to be set free,” he told me.
“我打算被释放，”他告诉我。
But if the judge rules against Chris, he remains on the path toward death at the hands of the state.
但如果法官做出不利于克里斯的裁决，他仍然会死于国家之手。
He hasn’t yet exhausted his post-conviction appeals, but every passing day underscores the reality of execution as Landry pushes to carry out death sentences—none more so than March 18, the day the state killed his friend Jessie Hoffman.
他尚未用尽定罪后的上诉，但随着兰德里推动执行死刑，每一天都在强调执行死刑的现实——尤其是 3 月 18 日，即州政府杀害他的朋友杰西·霍夫曼 (Jessie Hoffman) 的那一天。
Even getting to this point—the opportunity for a showdown over the West video and the scientific validity of bite mark evidence—was possible because of policy changes made during a different era of Louisiana politics.
甚至到了这一点——就西方视频和咬痕证据的科学有效性进行摊牌的机会——也是可能的，因为路易斯安那州政治的不同时代做出了政策变化。
But it is Landry’s state now.
但现在就是兰德里的状态了。
The governor, along with the new attorney general and a willing legislature, seems determined to craft a future for Louisiana in which people condemned by the state to die remain trapped, with little to no chance at relief.
州长、新任总检察长和愿意的立法机构似乎决心为路易斯安那州打造一个未来，让那些被该州判处死刑的人仍然被困在困境中，几乎没有机会获得解脱。
“It’s clearly an attempt to go back in time,” Quigley, the Loyola professor emeritus, told me.
“这显然是一次回到过去的尝试，”洛约拉大学名誉教授奎格利告诉我。
In an oversight hearing of a state Senate judiciary committee last fall, one legislator pointed out that they had the power to repeal post-conviction relief entirely—which the AG called “a matter of legislative grace” rather than a right.
去年秋天，在州参议院司法委员会的一次监督听证会上，一名立法者指出，他们有权完全废除定罪后救济——总检察长称这是“立法宽限问题”而不是一项权利。
Some legislators discussed their belief that people getting out of prison due to technicalities brought up in post-conviction appeals were not truly innocent.
一些立法者讨论了他们的信念，即因定罪后上诉中提出的技术问题而出狱的人并不真正无辜。
But it is those very “technicalities”—pervasive racial bias, prosecutorial misconduct, woefully deficient legal representation, the longtime use of nonunanimous juries—that have led to scores of unjust convictions in Louisiana, if not outright wrongful ones.
但正是这些“技术性问题”——普遍存在的种族偏见、检察官的不当行为、严重缺乏法律代表、长期使用不一致的陪审团——导致了路易斯安那州出现了数十起不公正的定罪，甚至是完全错误的定罪。
Chris has spent more than half his life incarcerated for something he has maintained never happened, with the state hellbent on defending the integrity of his conviction.
克里斯一生中大半生都在监狱中度过，他坚称这件事从未发生过，而国家决心捍卫他信念的完整性。
In the Louisiana Landry desires, Chris might never have gotten the chance to argue his case.
在路易斯安那州兰德里的愿望中，克里斯可能永远没有机会为自己的观点辩护。
He might not be here at all.
他可能根本不在这里。
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Bolts 是一个依赖捐赠的非营利新闻编辑室，制作这项工作需要资源。
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