I've worked on these cases briefly (a couple of years) as a private investigator for a criminal defense lawyer when I was in law school and as a prosecutor (a bit over a year), and since then as appellate defense counsel (since '95). For several years there I also worked closely with the trial capital defense unit (a centralized unit that handled the majority of the potential first-degree murder cases in the state). Because my office handles almost all of them, I wind up working in some capacity (consulting or as assigned counsel) on most of my state's appeals of killing convictions.