No week goes by without an inquiry concerning Edgar Smith, convicted for murder, whose persistent claims to innocence caught NR’s attention six years ago, and who last year wrote a best-seller on his experiences entitled Brief Against Death. The developments are two: a) incredibly, no date has yet been set for the hearing ordered by the Supreme Court last October. Judges are very busy men. But they can also be extraordinarily callous about the effect of the law’s delays. It isn’t as though one were suing the moving company for the loss of one’s favorite antimacassar. Edgar Smith has been held in a death cell since 1957, and now the Supreme Court finds that there are a priori grounds for questioning whether he was justly convicted. One would think that under the circumstances the lower courts would instantly schedule the hearing, if only on the traditional grounds that irreparable damage is being done to Smith: month after month after month in a death cell. Not even that. A fortnight ago, a fellow inmate thought to play a prank on a new guard, whose habits had earned the disrespect of the inmates. Accordingly a note was circulated faking a projected break. The guard panicked, and the quarters of the prisoners were searched. Contraband! Smith was found to possess, against regulations, an old razor blade (he uses it to make parcels for sending to his mother the oil canvasses he paints), and his wedding ring. He was sent, on the twelfth anniversary of his entrance into the death house, into “the hole.” Said hole is a tiny area, dark, without a reading light, incommunicado. Sentence, ten days. It transpired that the wedding ring, seized from him when he was sent to the death house, had been returned at the time of his scheduled execution, Smith having expressed the wish to wear it in the chair. The authorities forgot to reclaim it. Contributions to the Edgar Smith Defense Fund (tax deductible) should go to Mr. James Williams, Treasurer, New York Yearly Meeting of Friends, Oakwood School, Poughkeepsie, New York.
Dear Mr. Buckley: In reference to the advertisement requesting dental services in your “Notes and Asides” (June 17), I have two questions. Can a dentist reply to this request and advertise that he is a conservative without advertising that he is a dentist? Since it is “unethical” for a dentist to advertise for patients in periodicals (although forms of advertising and what constitutes advertising are open to interpretation), could a conservative dentist be unethical? What a ridiculous thought! Even to consider the proposition seems to be straining the very borders of reason. I guess you’ll discover the answer to the second question by the returns, but they will probably be glutted by replies from liberal dentists who accidentally stumbled into NR. I guess it would be pretty revolting to be trapped by a verbose, liberal dentist. What chance at rebuttal does one have with a mouth full of fingers and cotton balls?
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