I’m no expert on assisted suicide, but murder is another matter. Eight years as an assistant DA in Harris County, Texas, lifted me into the major league of murder trials. I tried many of Houston’s highest-profile cases, and as a result sent sixteen people to death row at the Walls Unit in Huntsville. Then a slow accretion of events and realizations convinced me that I had not been divinely ordained to punish the guilty. I had seen inexcusable mistakes made in capital cases—by cops, lawyers, pathologists, crime labs, and juries—and this weighed heavily in my decision to leave the prosecutor’s office. I never convicted an innocent man, but I worried I’d seen it done by colleagues, and nine months ago a burgeoning scandal in the Houston crime lab suggested that my sickening premonitions were all too accurate. Having my own father charged with murder is a sobering prospect, especially in a small Mississippi town. If there’s anything Dad can do to head off his arrest tomorrow, he needs to do it—for my mother, for my daughter, and most of all for himself.

Seven weeks ago he almost died, I remind myself, as I park my car and walk to the side door of his medical office. Keep that fact at the forefront of your mind. It’s easy to dismiss a heart attack, once the critical danger has passed, but something tells me that the psychological fallout of Dad’s near-death experience is affecting his assessment of his present jeopardy. Of course, he doesn’t yet grasp the full magnitude of that jeopardy. He still believes that the district attorney views Viola’s death as assisted suicide. I almost called him several times today to correct that perception, but I wanted to be sure I had a clear understanding of the situation first. More important, I wanted to speak to Dad alone. This isn’t easy to manage, since at home my mother always seems to hover within earshot, and when he’s in his office, his longtime nurse, Melba Price, is forever at his side.

Before I could even attempt such a meeting, I had to spend three hours with the superintendent of schools and three dozen angry parents. I came into office promising to reform education in the city. Two years later, 50 percent of the kids in our public schools drop out before graduating from the twelfth grade, while only 2 percent in our private schools drop out. The city’s public schools are 95 percent black, the private schools 85 percent white. This problem is easy to diagnose but virtually impossible to cure, and even basic treatment is one of the most contentious issues in the county. This afternoon’s meeting brought zero progress.