Arkansas executed Ledell Lee last night, even though he may have been innocent.

In Lee’s case, the records show shocking failures of his defense attorneys, both at trial and post-conviction, which were compounded by egregious conflicts of interest. His trial judge was having an affair with the prosecutor; the two would later get married. The same judge later expressed his regret at appointing a lawyer to Lee’s state habeas proceeding who showed up to court obviously intoxicated. A state prosecutor raised concerns that the attorney was slurring his words, stumbling in the courtroom, and speaking incoherently, while “introducing the same items of evidence over and over again.” Later, the judge told the lawyer that he was unaware he had only recently been in rehab. “If I had known that, I would not have put you on this case,” he said.

Capital punishment is usually rationalized as acceptable with slogans like “the worst of the worst,” to make us feel not nearly so awful about the state killing a person in our name. Maybe Lee was the worst, but 20 years after the death of Debra Reese, doubts persist. While fortune-cookie slogans bring comfort to the simplistic, it’s impossible to think this legal system sufficiently trustworthy, adequately effective, to kill a man. It’s just not that good.

As the days, minutes edge toward the killing hour, we obsess over the individuals few knew, or cared, about up to then. When there was a chance to put a stop to the gears that end in the machinery of death, they’re invisible. The cases get little attention and nightmare scenarios, like the judge dating the prosecutor, fliy under the radar.

Why bother to work up a sweat until the death sentence is imposed? It’s not real until it’s too late. But then, of course, it’s too late. After conviction and imposition of sentence, all the burdens shift, the opportunity to challenge disappears and it’s just a matter of relying on the kindness of the government. The same government that sought death in the first place.

In Aurora, Colorado, there was a killer before James Holmes in 2012. Nathan Dunlap was called the Chuck E. Cheese killer, having been fired from his job and returned to gun down five employees, killing four. This happened in 1993. Dunlap was scheduled to be executed in 2013, but Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper issued a temporary reprieve.

The reason for the temporary reprieve was that the governor didn’t want Dunlap executed on his watch (he’s a Quaker), but didn’t want to grant clemency either. Dunlap would live only so long as Hickenlooper was governor. After that, it was someone else’s problem.

His lawyers, however, continued to pursue the governor’s conscience, and thought they found a crack, that the governor might feel more merciful on his way out the door, when the politics of clemency couldn’t hurt his political aspirations.

One of Dunlap’s attorneys, Madeline Cohen, said that members of Hickenlooper’s staff have suggested the attorney’s strategy may be received favorably, but not until the end of his term in early 2019.

“We’ve been given an indication that the expert issues may move the ball forward,” Cohen said in a Denver courtroom. “It has the potential of persuading the governor.”

The “expert issues” referred to are Dunlap’s childhood psychological traumas. If so, these might have been the sort of issues to be fully raised before he was sentenced to death. The defense says they have new evidence which might move the governor off the dime. The governor’s staff is publicly noncommittal.

Hickenlooper was not available for comment, but spokeswoman Jacque Montgomery said he has not made a decision yet. She acknowledged that the governor’s legal team spoke to Dunlap’s attorneys, which is normal protocol on clemency requests, but offered no indication of a timeline for a decision or what information to provide.

“We have never given any indication of where the governor is on this case or any case,” she said.

At the same time, Hickenlooper says he’s “open” to the idea of clemency.

“It’s something that merits thought and it’s on my list,” he said in an interview posted earlier Wednesday by a website affiliated with the Colorado Springs Gazette.

But what’s stopping the governor from thinking about something that “merit’s thought”? Money. A lot of money.

The attorneys asked the judge to approve spending $750,000 in an effort to persuade the term-limited Democrat with new evidence from a psychiatrist about the impact of Dunlap’s traumatic childhood on his decision-making.

The one thing that’s rarely discussed is that the lawyers fighting the good fight may be fighting for freedom, but aren’t always fighting for free. It’s not that they should go unpaid, necessarily, but $750,000 is a lot of money under any circumstances, and a lot of money when the use to which it’s to be put is getting the governor to man up to a decision. What will be done with the money isn’t clear, but it would be more than enough to pay for one hell of a great psych report with enough left over to buy a nice Maybach or two.

The application for funds came before Colorado Senior District Judge John Kane,

U.S. District Court Senior Judge John Kane cast doubt on the defense attorney’s strategy to spend money to persuade Hickenlooper, suggesting that asking the governor to take a stand is a little like a Pillsbury commercial.

“You poke the Pillsbury Doughboy in the belly, there’s a giggle and that’s the end of it,” Kane said. “All of this is because we have a present governor who is not making a decision. … I’m not about to endorse the present situation. …These are not legal issues.”

These aren’t funds to mount a habeas attack on the sentence, but to, apparently, lobby the governor to do what he should have, but is too politically squeamish to do. Judge Kane refused to throw more public money into this pit.

Kane said he has already authorized $396,947 for Dunlap’s defense without knowing how that money was used and decided to withhold further spending “until such a time that I receive from the governor or you what sort of things are needed by the governor in order to proceed.”

“It seems like it is going into a black hole … without having the faintest idea what it is for,” he said of the past spending. “It’s this netherworld that is of great concern to me. I can’t swing at the ball until someone throws a pitch.”

Should Dunlap reach the eve of execution, there will no doubt be voices decrying an execution that a governor lacked the courage to prevent. In the midst of the angst, it may well be questioned whether a man will be executed for lack of money, because a federal judge refused to give the defense the wherewithal to prevent this death.

“Who is yapping in politics is not my concern,” Kane said. “I can’t approve these expenditures based on oblique representations. That is something that should be reserved for a pub.”

But what’s a judge to do?

She repeatedly expressed concerns about revealing the defense strategy in court before the media. “It’s very confusing for all of us,” Cohen said.

It’s $750,000 worth of confusing. Afterward, the question may be posed as to the value of a man’s life, though that question wasn’t asked before the death sentence was imposed. But it’s the wrong question.