The Last 12 Weeks

The daily podcast is supported by Parthenon, 's global strategy consulting practice, working with CEOs, boards, investors, and governments on their toughest decisions. How do you turn strategy into action and action into impact? Bold leaders do it through transformative strategy and transactions. With an investor mindset, deep sector expertise, and AI powered tech, Parthenon helps you find solutions that work in practice, not just on paper. Learn more at ey.com/parthenon. From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily on Sunday. Today, we've got a little something different for you because our colleagues over at Serial Productions have a new series out that we're excited to share. It's called The Last Twelve Weeks, and it follows a team of death penalty lawyers in their last minute scramble to try to stop their clients' execution in Texas. And what's kind of incredible about it is that the team at Serial managed to convince a team of death penalty lawyers to let them follow them around in the middle of an actual case. They put microphones in the room as the lawyers tried to argue their case, to witnesses, to the media, to a victim's mother. And these are the kinds of behind the scenes conversations you rarely get to hear, and they are riveting. And so we're sharing the first episode of the five part series, a collaboration with the Marshall Project and hosted by reporter Maurice Chama. You can find all episodes by searching for the last twelve weeks wherever you get your podcasts. Okay. Here's the show. In the fall of twenty twenty four, a criminal defense lawyer got the kind of phone call that most lawyers can only dream about. It concerned a client of his, a guy named David Wood, one of Texas' most notorious serial killers. He was sitting on death row, months away from his execution. Oh, Chris. Thanks for doing a call. And I would like to discuss with you something about David Wood. Why don't condone what has happened in that case? The fact is, I don't know why The man on the phone, George Hall, thought something corrupt had gone down in David Wood's trial. Wells. It had happened more than thirty years ago. But for thirty years, he'd said nothing. Mostly because he was afraid to. For those thirty years, he'd been on parole. He worried if he aggravated the authorities, they might find some way to send him back to prison. But now his parole had ended, and George Hall was ready to tell his story, which he'd eventually put into a sworn declaration. That story goes like this. Back in the late eighties, George Hall and David Wood were locked up together at the Eastham Unit in Texas. George Hall was in for murder. David Wood was in for rape. They weren't particularly close. David Wood was quiet, didn't talk much. But when he did, George says, it was mainly to complain about how …