As a philosophical matter, I was firmly against capital punishment. The government should never have the power to take a human being’s life. Yet as a law clerk, it was my job to advise Judge Friedman how to decide cases after interpreting the facts within the confines of the law. The Pennsylvania State Legislature had passed a statute allowing for the death penalty and therefore my philosophical views had no place.

That said, it seemed that Dell Nelson, the defendant, had received a bum deal. It was true he was no saint. Dell was a famed drug dealer at Arch Homes, the public housing development where Peter’s body was discovered. He was the go-to guy for anything—speed, heroin, crack, cocaine. You name it, he had it. But he wasn’t the kind of drug dealer you saw in the movies. According to neighbors, he was the classic nice guy. Soft-spoken, quick to laugh, generous to a fault (“You needed to borrow a couple bucks for some diapers or somethin’, Dell was your man”). Apparently, the only thing that agitated Dell was when people messed with his sisters or grandmother (“He punched one motherfucker in the face after he called little Izzie a slut”).

A week after Peter’s death, Dell Nelson was arrested outside of his apartment, after having returned from a trip to the grocery store. His arrest came amid a media feeding frenzy. It was a victory for the University of Pennsylvania’s president, dean, and provost, as well as for the Philadelphia police chief, the mayor, and the governor of Pennsylvania, all of whom had “vow[ed]” to catch the killer.

A jury convicted Dell Nelson of aggravated murder and sentenced him to death. During the trial, it was revealed that Peter Nussbaum had raped Dell’s sister Izzie, a fact the district attorney used to establish motive. A clerk at the liquor store around the corner from Arch Homes testified: “When I was lockin’ up one night a week before the shootin’, I heard Dell say to that boy, ‘You touch my sister again, and I’m going to kill you.’” Blatant hearsay, but Dell’s lawyer never objected, and consequently the jury considered it to be direct evidence of guilt. It didn’t help the defense that Peter owed Dell a considerable sum of money. Even though Peter’s family owned Tartac, the country’s most profitable tar company, Peter never seemed to have enough money to subsidize his formidable crack habit.