Over the years, Jimmy Berry has kept more than 50 killers from the death chamber, including infamous clients like Fred Tokars, a lawyer who set up the shotgun-murder of his wife, and Lynn Turner, who poisoned her boyfriend and husband with antifreeze.
Juries in the U.S and Georgia have been sentencing fewer defendants to death in recent years. But Berry, 68, a Cobb County native who started out in real estate law, has seen three clients receive the ultimate sentence since 2007. Joshua Drucker was sentenced to death last month by a Cobb jury for a double slaying in 2004. Stacey Humphreys, who killed two real estate agents in 2003, was sentenced by a Brunswick jury. And Michael Ledford was condemned by a Paulding County jury for the 2006 sexual assault and murder of a bicyclist on the Silver Comet trail.
Berry is known for being overloaded with cases that few other lawyers want, cases that eat up weeks of time and pay little. He said the intense publicity surrounding Georgia’s execution of Troy Davis, a convicted cop killer who insisted on his innocence until the end, may have actually hurt other death penalty defendants.
Q: What did the Davis case do to future death penalty cases?
A: I think it might have had some backlash on cases coming up. People will say, “This case is not like Troy Davis. They have a confession and eye witnesses.” They may see Troy Davis as a poster child for what a death penalty case shouldn’t be. They might say, “The prosecution has this [evidence] and that, so we should give it.”
Q: You argue the death penalty, and its appeals, is costly. Supporters may know it, but politically, it’s still popular.
A: I don’t know if the South will ever change. Politically, legislators aren’t willing to take that step.
Q: What are the keys to waging a successful death penalty defense?
A: You never know what jurors will take note of or how they feel. Picking a jury is the key to keeping a person off death row. I just believe there’s good in every life. People do terrible things but a life is a life. I feel strongly the death penalty is not good for society.
Q: Juries are often fickle in how they mete out the sentence.
A: You might have the same type of murder in one county and [prosecutors] ask for it, and, in the next, they don’t. There should be someone — maybe the attorney general — who should look at the cases and weigh the circumstances.
Q: The trend seems like it’s going against the death penalty. In 1998, 294 defendants [nationally] were sentenced, but last year it was only 112.
A: I’m hopeful people are looking at that. We’re the only civilized country that has it.
Q: But, at the same time, it’s popular. Gallup polls show it with 64 percent support.
A: I don’t know if it’s the economy. When times are bad, people feel it will help. Statistics show it does not deter crime. In England, they used to hang pickpockets, but in the crowd at the hangings, there were more pickpockets there picking pockets.
Q: What are the toughest areas in death penalty cases?
A: The Brunswick area is tough because of all the people connected with law enforcement. Columbus has always been tough. And Cobb County is pretty conservative, and not only with the death penalty.
Q; You seem a little down when talking about this.
A: You have to stay optimistic. I think people get a wrong perception about defense lawyers. It’s not to get people off. It’s to protect someone’s constitutional rights. If a person gets arrested, they’re going to want their constitutional rights protected. Otherwise, we’d be a police state — whoever gets arrested goes to jail without a trial.
Q: Who’s been your toughest opponent?
A: Jack Mallard [a former Fulton and Cobb prosecutor] and I have tried a lot of cases. But they are all tough. It’s not the DA who’s difficult. It’s the facts. They are just often difficult things to get around.
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