Serial - The Last 12 Weeks - Ep. 5

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Days before the execution, the defense team scrambles to respond to an unexpected ruling, while the lead lawyer makes what may be his final visit to David Wood on death row. Everyone waits to find out Wood’s fate. To find out about new shows from Serial Productions, and get a look behind the scenes, sign up for our newsletter at nytimes.com/serialnewsletter. Have a story pitch, a tip, or feedback on our shows? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On a warm day in early March, I meet Naomi in Dallas. We're in the final stretch of this case, exactly one week out from David Wood's execution date, and Naomi's driving up to death row to visit him. I can't be with her for the actual visit, but still, I'm tagging along for the ride. All of Naomi's visits with David have come with the stress of a coming execution,

but it's impossible to ignore the specific context here, that is potentially her last visit with him. I have been giving some thought to, how to leave the conversation in the sense of, you know, what do we say when it's time for me to go? This particular question, what do I say when it's time for me to go, is a thorny one for death penalty lawyers. Being face to face with a perfectly healthy human being has a moment of their death rapidly approaches, painfully aware of its exact manner and timing. Greg describes this last interaction as deeply unnatural, a conversation where language itself

feels inadequate. Naomi has been running scenarios in her head for how to leave it with David. She tells me she was up at 3.30 this morning, trying to figure out just the right thing to say. It's hard because you want to be caring and you want to express compassion, but you also have to remain in the role of an attorney. And like, I don't want to have like some sort of, on my part, like teary goodbye of like, I might never see you again. And, you know, I want to be fair in the odds, right? Which is like, I could see you and I might not. Naomi spends three hours inside death row.

I'm waiting for her in the parking lot when she gets out. How did it go? He didn't want to talk about the case. So I just told him a little bit about like next steps and what had happened. Naomi tells me she said maybe five sentences during their entire visit. Most of the rest of it was listening to David tell stories. About his first stint in prison in a unit everyone called the gladiator school. About a summer he spent in his dad's hometown where he stole a bunch of fireworks

so his little cousins would set them off. He also told me to never try shrooms. Any more on that or just blanket statement? He said that he'd seen things that A human should never have to see while he was on shrooms. He's, you know, he's worried about Greg. He's worried about his sister. He said he was going to be okay.

Do you think he's going to be okay? I don't know. I think so. I think, I mean, maybe I'm just trying to comfort myself, but he's really angry, you know? I did know that part from The Hour, Marie. and I spent with David, how angry he was about his case. That wasn't hard to pick up on, but Naomi had a different vantage point here. Maybe a biased one, but no doubt a closer one.

When our office first took on David's case, Naomi agreed to help, but didn't want to go to death road a visit with him. Jeremy, her boss, has always made it clear that in these situations, when it's very likely that their client will be executed within months, it's not a requirement to go. But Greg told Naomi that her perspective and work on the case was something that David would want to hear about firsthand. So she started heading down to see him. Their relationship, under those conditions, grew quickly. He sent her some of his paintings,

and she started to see him as more than just a name on a legal filing. Even though she'd only known him for a few months, Naomi had a feel for his anxiety and fear. She had come to know him in a way the defied easy category. It's this really strange relationship that is, not a friendship, although it can sometimes feel like one. Like, how do we describe not only like that relationship, but the grief of maybe losing that person? Like, what am I really sad about here?

Particularly when, as far as the outside world knows, David Wood is a serial killer who also has a very violent, criminal record of crimes against children. And I know, like, every time I, you know, like, in the microphone say that, like, I'm sad. I'm like, oh, I can just hear the, well, the families of the victims are sad because they never got this time either. The thing is, Alvin, is if David Wood is executed and their family members, who are seeking closure and peace from that, I hope they get it because otherwise,

it is truly, truly pointless. How did you leave it? I told him that I really, really, really hope I get to see him again. I really hope we get a stay. From serial productions, the New York Times, and the Marshall Project, I'm Alvin Melleth. And I'm Mory.

Shama. This is the final episode of the last 12 weeks. There are now six days until David Wood's execution date. For this final stretch, Alvin is with Naomi and Jeremy in Dallas. I'm with Greg, who's a couple hundred miles away in Livingston, Texas. For this final push in the case, Greg has decided to set up a one-man war room at a holiday in here, about 15 minutes from death row. He's in a pretty Spartan suite on the third floor that overlooks a parking lot and a dollar store. A desk covered in papers, a small mountain of bottled drinks. He's got more than one novel on his bedstand, which seems a little optimistic given the circumstances. Greg could do his legal work from anywhere with an internet connection, but he chooses to do it from here so that he can visit David

as much as possible in these next few days. That and because it was in this exact holiday in, years ago, that he won a stay of execution for another client. He figures, he'll take all the luck he can get. I plop down on a faux-leather couch in his room as he gets to work. The legal specifics of what Greg and the other lawyers are going to be up to, and the run-up to the execution are interesting, and I'll get to them. But there is one not-strictly legal thing I've been wondering about this moment for Greg. I'm curious about his relationship with David,

what potentially losing him might mean for Greg. He explains it to me by way of comparison. A lot of his other death row clients, Greg tells me, have had severe mental illnesses, like schizophrenia. Communicating with them could be challenging. Greg cared for these men and fought for them, but he wouldn't describe those relationships as all that close. Certainly not as close as the one I've had with David.

And, yes, I've gotten to know him fairly well over the years. Now, 16 years. Over those 16 years, Greg has shared more about his personal life with David than he otherwise might have with a client. When Greg's father was suffering from Alzheimer's, David asked if he could pray for him. Ham painted him a card that Greg put in his father's room. Greg saw David through the death of his younger brother and has gotten close with David's sister, too. I was surprised at these men with their wildly different life experiences and temperaments,

both referred to each other as brothers. David's allowed to invite up to five people to witness his execution, and it's common to invite family. Greg thinks there's a chance David will ask him. David hasn't brought it up yet, and Greg is sort of hoping he doesn't. He's never watched one of his clients be executed before. He always worried that the trauma of it would make it harder for him to do his job. But Greg says if David doesn't have anyone else, he'll be there. He doesn't want David to face death alone.

In any case, this is probably the last time Greg will be in this position. He turned 60 not long ago, and though he isn't planning to retire anytime soon, he's also not planning to take on new death row clients. Another capital case at this point, given how long they last, might outlive him. So in all likelihood, David will be his last death row client. These are the things weighing on Greg's mind as he prepares for all the work ahead of him, most likely firing off responses to whatever court decisions and prosecution briefs come out this week. To that end, he stocked his mini-fridge with yogurt and what I'd call an apocalyptic amount of blueberries,

so he never has to leave the room for breakfast. He's got his other meals covered, too. So I like to have a turkey sandwich every day for lunch. So I've got my bread, I've got my processed turkey, and I've got my cheese, Swiss, and cheddar, got my mustard. Greg's palette, I should note, is something of a running joke on the defense team. I myself have gotten pretty stressed out watching them order at restaurants, asking the server to substitute or remove anything that sounds spicy or honestly like flavorful at all.

He's saving the real treat, a pint of Ben & Jerry's, for when this is a little. all over. Ice creamy figures will be helpful no matter how this turns out. Is Greg doing well? Back in Dallas, Naomi and Jeremy and the rest of the defense team are taking a little break from their legal strategizing to figure out a care package for Greg

that might suit his specific dietary desires. I know he likes Gatorade. He likes plain chicken. Plain chicken. It's then there's a raw chicken. Delivery order done and dusted, the team in Dallas. Alice turns back to their to-do list, following up on all the legal filings and petitions they're

working on. They lay some of the options out, I think mostly for my benefit, on a whiteboard with marker. Okay. You can be here, which is... Oh, that's not going to work. I've got black. There are four main avenues the lawyers are exploring to stop David Wood's execution. All four are long shots at this point, but some more than others.

I'm going to quickly spell them out, roughly from the least likely to the most promising. The least likely route by far is that the governor of Texas will intervene. He could issue a 30-day reprieve or else his appointees on the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroleals could vote to commute the sentence, and he could approve it. This is extremely uncommon. The current governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has commuted exactly one death sentence since he came into office more than a decade ago. The Second Avenue, the U.S. Supreme Court, is slightly more likely than the governor to stop the execution,

but only by a little. They do stay executions, but it's increasingly rare. It requires the lawyers thinking up a unique legal claim that'll hook a justice or two. In some ways, the more technical and incremental stuff usually works better,

but the lawyers are also ready with a last ditch moonshot. If all else fails, the last of justice is to rule on whether it's kosher, legally speaking, to execute someone who has proven their innocence.

Believe it or not, this is not yet a settled matter of constitutional law. The Third Avenue is a Federal Circuit Court, specifically the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which deals with all the death penalty appeals in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Federal courts are, broadly speaking, more challenging to death row claims than state courts. And the Fifth Circuit, one of the most conservative in the country, is notoriously unfriendly to death row claims. Between 2007 and 2020, they granted habeas relief to just one death row prisoner in Texas, one out of 151.

Which brings us to the last avenue, the highest state court for criminal cases in Texas. The CCA, the court of criminal appeals. If there's any one court the team is pinning their hopes on, it's the CCA. But to call it the most promising is maybe a reach. It's mostly by process of elimination. The CCA has historically stayed very few executions. But if the defense team squints, they can find a bit of silver lining. A few months ago, three new judges were elected to the court.

bench. All three are conservative Republicans. But there's at least some uncertainty in how these new judges might rule. This mystery is what passes for optimism with habeas lawyers. With less than a week to go until the execution date, the team, weirdly, doesn't have much to do but wait. They submitted what they needed to to the governor and to the CCA. Now, they're just adding their finishing touches to their federal petition and Supreme Court filings before they send those off. All of which has led to what I've observed in the hallways in Dallas has a very particular energy, boredom operating occasionally on a knife's edge. I've been called out for sometimes capitalizing the tea and sometimes not capitalizing the

tea and t-shirt. Do we have a preference? I've struggled to think of anything I gave less of a shit about than whether we capitalize the t-and-t-shirt right now. Jeremy, in particular, seems pent up, very all dressed up with nowhere to go. On March 10th, three days before the execution date, he tried to busy himself with work usually done by the office paralegal. I spied him shuffling back and forth from his office all the way down the corridor to the printer, multiple times, personally printing copies of a writ they were going to send to the Supreme Court, personally stapling them. Good staple. The glamorous life of a lawyer.

The next day, on March 11th, I got to the office a little late. Honestly, partly because I'd spent several days in a row recording the functional equivalent of dead air for hours. I check in with Jeremy. Did I miss anything? You missed absolutely nothing. In fact, I think we obviously never know when the court opinions are going to come down, but I think it's likely we have a relatively quiet morning.

And for a little bit, it seems like Jeremy's right. Everyone is sitting quietly at their computers. I roam the halls of the office, feeling a little silly, wondering if pointing my microphone at Naomi's typing is a better use of my time than pointing my microphone at Jeremy staring at a screen. And then suddenly, something happens that nobody was expecting. The Fifth Circuit, the Federal Appeals Court, hands down their ruling.

The lawyers are confused, because in their experience, the Fifth Circuit usually waits until the CCA acts in these cases. The federal courts don't tend to rule before the state courts, but they have this time. The whole office goes into a tailspin. Jeremy says he's never seen this before. He calls Greg, desperate to get him on the phone to figure this out. Greg doesn't pick up. Jeremy wonders aloud if he's on the treadmill.

What the fucking Christ? Pick up your goddamn phone, Greg. What little restraint Jeremy is shown in this podcast with regard to cursing is now completely out the window. While Jeremy waits on Greg to respond, he skims the fifth circuit. at ruling. One thing that jumps out, Ramona dismisses. Ramona, remember, is a woman who met the lawyers at a Waterberger, who told them about the wild plant she and her mother came up with to try and lure out the desert killer on their own.

My mom was literally tricking me. She was like, go sit on that wall, and somebody's going to come and try to kidnap you, and I'll call the cops, and we'll get them. Romona was also the person who offered the lawyers an explanation. For why a woman named Judith Kelling, said David would raped her, one of the foundations of his death sentence. This is what she's telling me. They made a deal with me to get me out of jail, and all I got to do is to testify against this guy.

I was like, well, were you even raped? She's like, yeah, but not by him. I'm like, who? She said, Mike Plyler. I'm like, who's this guy? Ramona Dismukes was never called to testify in the capital murder trial, and so the jury never heard that claim.

The Fifth Circuit writes, If Dismukes had testified to the facts she states in her declaration that Kelling identified Plyler as her attacker, but falsely framed Wood, that would have destroyed the state's case so thoroughly that every reasonable juror would have had a reasonable doubt about Wood's guilt. So, I mean, this is one of the most powerful statements I've ever seen the Fifth Circuit make.

Wow. I mean, that is, I mean, really, really an incredible statement. It turns out the Fifth Circuit authorized some of the defense team's claims, including Ramona's, meaning they'd like a lower court to take a look at them. There's also a catch. He explains it to Greg when he finally gets him on the phone. He was, in fact, on the treadmill. All right, there's Greg.

Greg? I'm walking now, so I thought I had about a half hour of peace, but apparently not. What's going on? No, so we've got incredible news and crazy fucking news. All right. So the Fifth Circuit authorized the Brady and part of the false testimony claim, but they didn't stay the execution. Jesus.

In other words, for the defense team, this is roughly the equivalent of the Fifth Circuit saying, we suspect something really fishy going on here. But we're not going to be the ones to stop this execution. Jeremy snaps into action. Actually, snaps so fast that he runs into me as he's barking out orders to one of the lawyers. Claire, I almost ate the fucking microphone. It's like, turned on a dime and Elvin wasn't quick enough. Can you draft a proposed order for the Northern District for the statement?

motion? Let's get that done. Naomi, just very briefly, I just told this to Claire, we're going to attach Mona's declaration to the The machine wearing into action is impressive to watch. The lawyers start typing away. They're trying to file a motion

for a stay in a lower federal court to see if they'll stop the execution, even though the Fifth Circuit refused to. Everyone seems somewhat gobsmacked that this is all happening because of something Ramona Dismukes declared at a Waterberger two months ago. Officially, exhibit number 62 in the defense filings.

Exhibit 62 is the winner. The most important of the 115. Two pages. It's funny how this shit works sometimes, isn't it? As the lawyers are busy, trying to figure out how to deal with this unexpected development from the federal courts, they get some more news. The state just filed their response in the CCA. Are you serious? Yeah.

It's very timely. them. Quiet fucking morning, some asshole said not too long ago. The prosecution has its say about David Wood. That's after the break. One of the more challenging aspects of making this podcast has been getting the prosecution side of David Wood's case. We've been trying to get someone from the state of Texas to talk to us for months. We asked the Office of Attorney General Ken Paxton for an interview multiple times. No response. We even knocked on the doors of the two original trial prosecutors in El Paso. and sent them letters. We never heard back.

But on Tuesday morning, shortly after the Fifth Circuit ruling sends the lawyers into a frenzy, the state of Texas finally issues its own giant brief in the case. Two days before the execution is scheduled, the Attorney General's office officially responds to each of the defense team's claims. Because the prosecutors wouldn't talk to us, this is our first real window into how they see all the new evidence.

It's 63 pages, and I would characterize it all as the written equivalent of an eye roll, like this again? The prosecution writes, none of Wood's evidence is actually new, nor is it exculpatory. Take the DNA. One of the biggest pieces of evidence that Greg wrote about was a blood spot on a piece of victim's clothing

that belonged to a male contributor who's not David Wood. This is the reason Greg still wants to get a bunch of the other evidence in the case tested too. But the prosecution writes, quote, the presence of that DNA means nothing more than another man came into contact with that clothing. It doesn't mean David Wood is innocent. Ramona Dismukes,

who the Fifth Circuit had singled out in their own ruling just hours earlier, well, the AG's office had the opposite reaction to her claims. They write that Dismukes has, quote, serious credibility issues and argue that her whole story sounds pretty unbelievable,

that this woman, Judith Kelling, would admit to making up a rape allegation, to perjury effectively, and to railroading David Wood, all to Ramona, a teenager she'd just, met on a public street. And then there's George Hall, the man who held his tongue for 30-plus years,

before claiming that two jailhouse informants fabricated testimony to implicate David Wood in the desert murders. The prosecution doesn't directly challenge Hall's claims. Instead, they use them to criticize Greg, as in, you had more than 15 years to find this guy. Why is he only showing up now? Diligence, they write, requires more than waiting for witnesses to come forward. And this brings us to the through line of the prosecution's arguments, which is a familiar one, but worded pretty sharply here.

The Gregg's latest petition is really just one more effort to manipulate the court. The prosecution spends several pages outlining the many, many motions Greg has filed in the last 15 years that have ultimately been denied by the courts. The point being that Greg has had so much time to look for evidence of his client's innocence, and now here he is with more half-privileged. baked theories and conveniently urgent evidence. That if this was your first look at the case, maybe you wouldn't see it, but all you have to do is look at the record to know what's going on here.

The state says, quote, with his second execution date rapidly approaching, Wood has ramped up his efforts to improperly delay justice. And his whole attempt is, quote, scattershot at best, and does nothing to erode the evidence that the jury used to convict him. With a little over 50 hours to go until the execution, Greg decides to hand off the litigation for the moment to the team in Dallas. He wants to go visit David to update him on everything that's happened this morning, but also to spend what could be some of their last few hours together. I join him in the car on the way to death row. Greg is wearing his lucky tie, a pale blue number with circles on it.

It's lucky because he won at the Supreme Court once while wearing it. Greg is feeling a little cautious about what exactly he should tell David, given the mixed signal they just got from the Fifth Circuit. Well, I want to be careful because nothing's changed in terms of his situation, which is there's still an execution in 48 hours. I don't want to say, we're going to get a stay, stand down, don't prepare yourself. Still, here's some encouraging news, which might be almost like worse,

give you some hope here without the ultimate, which is a stay of execution, that's going to hold up. Yeah, it's like you're a doctor delivering like encouraging news, but... Yeah, we don't have the final test results yet

waiting on the labs. We park in the lot and Greg climbs out, leaves his phone in the rental car. He's not allowed to bring it into the prison with him. Meanwhile, back in Dallas, David Wood's pathway to a stay gets a little more narrow. The Board of Partons and Paroles has sent word that they voted unanimously against giving David Wood a reprieve or commutation.

They're the ones who can give a recommendation of the governor, so it looks like that's the end of Avenue 1. Though that's not really a big surprise to the lawyers. So, they have a tangled decision from the Fifth Circuit, which they're trying to deal with. They've got their chances with the Supreme Court, too. But really, the big thing they're waiting on is word from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals,

the CCA. I don't know what I was expecting when the CCA ruled, a gasp coming from one of the offices, the ring of a special alarm or something. Instead, when the CCA ruling finally came down, we got Jeremy, saddling up to us uncharacteristically quiet with a big grin on his face.

What happened? The CCA status execution? You're saying? Yeah. So I just checked the docket. The CCA docket shows a state. pending further order of the court in a 6-2 vote, which will be a final stay. I should have, I could sense you had a shit-eating grin on as you were walking over here.

I must definitely did. I most definitely did. This was the moment all the lawyers had been working toward for the entire time Maris and I have been following them. And they're still a little stunned that it's happened. Jeremy is giddy, really amazed by the stay, and really proud of it. himself for the anticlimactic way he delivered it to all of us. It is not the only thing that feels casual in proportion to the weight everyone has put on it. In their ruling, the CCA judges don't offer any explanation for their decision to stop the execution. The order itself is barely three pages long.

Basically, just a summary of the case history and a list of the defense team's claims. They grant a stay and write, quote, The stay will remain in place until further order of this court. Jeremy sends a quick text to Greg. Just one word, stay. Greg gives him a call back. Hey, Greg. Jeremy, I just got out.

What's the scoop? I'm with Greg outside of Death Row when he gets the news. He'd just come out of the prison where he was visiting David. Well, get your ass back inside. All right, I'm going to do that. I just want to see what you got there. Stay pending further order from the CCA. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. Six two. All right, I'm going to get back. All right, I'm going to get back. back in. Wow, fantastic news. Fantastic. Congratulations. All right, I'm going back in. Yeah, hurry out. Okay, bye. Greg bends out of the car. He wants to be the one to tell David the news himself. He doesn't trust the prison staff will relay it. And so David might spend the entire night continuing to think he's about to be executed. It's near closing time at the prison.

And so Greg literally has to run to make it through security before they close up shop for the day. About 10 minutes later, Greg comes rushing out and gets in the car, clearly out of breath as we peel out of the parking lot. Holy mackerel, as my dad would say, I just can't believe it. He gets out his phone and calls Jeremy again. David was overjoyed, tears in his eyes. His sisters were there. They were crying.

I even got a little teary-eyed myself, Jeremy. but anyway yeah they were just so elated and I only stayed for you know a minute to tell them and he said get some sleep get some rest tell everybody I love him

I said I'll be back tomorrow I said I haven't read the order I know it's 6 to 2 I know it's going to stick so Naomi and Clear are there right in Dallas yes yeah that's your dog all right wonderful

well wear yourself a hard one stiff one whatever it's called Greg himself plans on pizza And of course some Ben and Jerry's We head to Walmart And he browses the freezer aisle carefully As if he's looking for just the right vintage of wine

For the occasion He settles on chocolate fudge brownie And puts it down in one sitting Meanwhile in El Paso Marsha Fulton had been waiting Marsha's daughter Desiree Was one of the Desert Killer's victims Just 15 years old when she was murdered

Next year it will be the 40-year anniversary of her death Marcia had spent most of those years anxious to see David would pay for it. She'd packed her bag and was ready to leave for Huntsville for the execution when she got the call about the stay. Marcia then calls me, actually, and asks if I've heard the news yet. Yeah, it's like, why are they playing this game? Why are the victims the one keeps getting victimized?

Yeah. There's some real emotional whiplash here, going from the defense team's celebration to Marcia's fury. This is the second time she's prepared for this moment to finally keep her promise to her daughter only for something to get in the way. You know, I mean, 37 years, this could have been done wrapped up. I mean, there's no new evidence.

And it's just that he said, well, I'm not guilty. Well, no, I would say that too if I was facing the death penalty. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know if you hadn't heard. Yeah. Go get done one way or the other. I swear, God,

if I'd go down there and do it myself. All right. I'll talk soon. I can do that. No, I'll let me do that. You know that or God can do it for me. One of the two. Four and a half months go by,

before we hear anything else about David Wood's case from the CCA. The judges had been silent about what exactly the next steps were here, in which of the lawyer's claims they actually found persuasive. In July 2025, the defense team finally gets an answer. The judges write that all of their claims should be evaluated by a lower court,

which means a hearing in front of a judge in El Paso. It turns out the defense team was right to feel some optimism around the new mysterious CCA judges. One of them goes even further than the rest of the court and writes quote, this case should have been resolved one way or the other long ago

and likely would have had a DNA test been ordered. He's just one of nine judges, so he can't force the issue on his own. But it does pave the way for an El Paso judge to order the testing that Greg has wanted for more than a decade now. This ruling is about as good as it gets for the defense team. And the day it comes out, Alvin and I hop on the phone with Greg and Jeremy to talk about it. For a case that had such long odds when we started following these lawyers around, I was fully prepared for a bit of gloating here. But I wasn't exactly hearing them take a victory lap. Greg had spent all of those weeks we were with him, cultivating,

getting Charlie Brown optimism. But now that he'd won, it felt like he was finally getting his bearings. And while I could hear gratitude in his voice for the outcome, I could also hear some real anger about how close it all came to going the other way. And, you know, if David had been executed on March 13th, I think the state of Texas and the judges

and the state and federal courts would have said, you know, well done. He got the representation that he needed and deserved, and we can all, you know, be satisfied that we upheld the principles of our Constitution and our legal system. The system worked. Of course, that's probably what they'd say now, too, right? The system worked, hey, we're going to give this guy a shot who might be innocent. Greg, it's probably clear, does not think the system worked.

Or rather, he doesn't think the capital S system works. and he hates that perhaps all the time and the skill and dedication that he's given to David Wood's case might be used as an example of a system operating as it should. The idea that all the lawyers in this case are zealously representing their sides and that the judges are giving deliberate consideration to all the arguments, calling balls and strikes, that this process, though imperfect, is nevertheless the best that humans can do. Greg sees it all as much more precarious than that. Jeremy, as usual, puts it more bluntly.

Yeah, I mean, just fucking crazy, right? I mean, Greg has like a nice, like, answer that I totally agree with, too. But, like, you know, if Greg doesn't get involved in David's case, you know, 15, 20 years ago, whatever it was, who had been executed a long time ago. And none of these claims would have ever seen the light of day. Back in 1972, the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, halting executions across the country. Some of the justices wrote about racism, but actually their biggest focus was arbitrariness, that a bunch of people committed horrible crimes every year and who actually got the

death penalty was incredibly random. So the death penalty disappeared for a few years, and then politicians wrote new laws to try to make it less random, and the Supreme Court allowed executions to start up again. We're about to hit the 50-year anniversary of the supposedly new and improved death penalty, a half century with almost 1,700 executions. Watching David Wood's defense lawyers over the last 12 weeks, I feel confident in saying, it's still arbitrary. Not just in who gets put to death, but in who gets a stay. For instance, it was arbitrary that David Wood got a lawyer as devoted as Greg, and that he could enlist a team as devoted as Jeremy's. It was arbitrary that George Hall was still alive,

and off parole, and willing to tell his story about the jailhouse informant. That Ramona Desmukes just happened to be back in El Paso and willing to tell her story at a Waterburger. That some judges believe these stories enough to stop the execution felt arbitrary. But if they hadn't bought it, David Wood would be dead right now, and that would feel arbitrary too. We began following these lawyers thinking we'd get to watch their tactics, wondering if they were selling a story

or raising legitimate doubts about an unjust conviction. And in the end, I think both might be true, and neither is really the point. The point is that somehow we've arrived at a place where two separate courts, one federal and one state, have both found serious problems in this case. And this is after 30-plus years and layers and layers of appeals. After this case crossed the desks of dozens of judges. So why now? Well, the obvious answer is that the specter of an execution sparked a certain urgency to re-examine every little aspect of the case. But there's a trade-off, too.

relying on a deadline as irreversible as an execution is a cruel kind of brinksmanship, putting someone's life in the middle of an exhausting game of chicken. The effect goes beyond the person on death row. You can hear it in the tired voices of attorneys and in the jaded size of a victim's mother, too. And besides, the last 12 weeks haven't gotten us any closer to knowing what really happened in a stretch of desert

in northeast El Paso in 1987. It's been more than a year since the stay of execution was issued. David Wood's prospects have never been better, but it's almost impossible to know whether he'll ever be declared innocent, much less walk out of prison. There's still no date set for a hearing

on David Wood's innocence claim. For all of the blame Greg has taken for delaying this case, now other parties, the various judges and prosecutors involved, are contributing to the delays too. And ironically, from Greg's perspective, the faster things can happen now, the better.

After all, David Wood is a lot of almost 70 years old. Recently, a judge in El Paso ruled that the defense team could take depositions, interview some people who might not have been willing to talk to them before. The judge said he's anxious to get hearings going in the fall, so he set a deadline to complete those depositions. As of this writing, the defense team has a little less than 12 weeks. The last 12 weeks is written and reported by me, Maurice Schumann and Alvin Meleth.

Alvin produced the series. Jen Guera edited the series, along with Anita Badajo. Julie Snyder is the executive editor for serial productions. Additional editing from Akiva Solomon. Fact-checking and research by Ben Phelan. Music supervision by Jen Guera and Phoebe Wang, with mixing by Phoebe Wang. Additional mixing by Catherine Anderson. Tracking direction from Sean Cole.

Our associate producer is Mack Miller. Additional production by Anita Badajo. Additional reporting by Anna Worrell. There's a lot about the death penalty that we couldn't fit into this show. show. Stories from Capital Defense lawyers, a fascinating look at the data behind executions, you can find all of that in our newsletter. Sign up for it at n.witimes.com slash serial newsletter. Original music for this series by Adam Dorn, aka Motion Worker,

Matthias Bosse and John Evans of Stellwagen Symphonette. Additional music by Dan Powell and Marion Lazzano. Adam Dorn, aka Motion Worker, composed our theme song. Video production by Sean Devaney. Our standards editor is Susan Westling. Legal review from Alameen Sumar and Jackson Bush. The art for our show comes from Pablo Delcun. Sam Dolnick is Deputy Managing Editor of the New York Times.

Special thanks to Michael Gratchik, Bob Moore, Nick Pittman, Stephen Rich, and Julie Whitaker. The last 12 weeks is a production of serial productions, The Marshall Project, and the New York Times.