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A Q&A WITH THE AUTHOR OF "REVERSIBLE ERRORS"
Scott Turow has achieved remarkable success as both an attorney and an author. His first book, One L, about his experience as a first-year student at Harvard Law School, was published in 1977. Ten years later, he achieved a life-long ambition with the publication of his first novel, Presumed Innocent, which was later made into a feature film starring Harrison Ford. In this interview, Turow discusses his novel Reversible Errors and his involvement with the new CBS mini-series that is based on his book. For more on Turow, click here.
What was the inspiration for and essence of Reversible Errors?
The time I spent working on death penalty litigation really was the inspiration for Reversible Errors, but not in the sense that I wanted to get on a soapbox. First and foremost, the book is intended to be entertaining. It's a mystery, an old-fashioned whodunit in many senses. The question throughout is the identity of the real killer, just as in Agatha Christie. Now, of course, my story goes off in its own directions. And for complicated reasons -- reasons that were not even clear to me while I was writing -- my response to the death penalty is expressed as two love stories. But I make no bones about the fact that my first goal was to create an involving and suspenseful story.
Saying that should make it clear that the book is not a tract or polemic for any position. In fact, Reversible Errors (which Turow was writing at the time he was appointed to the Death Penalty Commission in Illinois) is not about the death penalty per se -- it's about the limits of the law. These cases take on profound personal meanings to the participants in a way that is transforming. I think that's the side of capital litigation that's portrayed in my book and in the mini-series. I show four people, whom I think of as fundamentally good, striving to do the right thing but also caught up in their own weaknesses. They're all dedicated to the truth, all pursuing the right end -- most of the time.
When I was writing Reversible Errors, my initial conception of the book was that it was going to focus on a capital punishment case and the maelstrom of emotions that descends on all of the participants. When the plot took the turns it did, I was surprised. I wondered, "Why is this, in many ways, ending up as a love story?" I think, in retrospect, that a lot of my feelings about capital punishment have to do with how we look to the legal system to restore us from the fear and anxiety that horrible crimes inspire. The truth of the matter is that the legal system cannot do that. In the end, our restoration lies in our connections to other people.
How did this mini-series come to be?
CBS and Frank von Zerneck [one of the mini-series' executive producers] approached me saying that they'd like to make my book into a mini-series. One of the sweeteners I was offered was that Mike Robe would direct it. He's a big enticement to me because I have such faith in him as a filmmaker and a person. Mike and I became close personal friends when he filmed [Turow's novel] Burden of Proof, and that's a relationship we've always maintained. So, I know that the story is in great hands with Mike Robe as director. An additional benefit is that Frank and his wife, Julie, own a bookstore. They really do like books -- and it shows in Frank's approach to making my book into this mini-series. Throughout this project, Frank went out of his way to involve me, to be certain I didn't feel my work was being compromised. Mike, too, approached the adaptation that way. We had a great screenplay from Alan Sharp. But it was Frank who set the tone and who involved me as a collaborator, rather than an antagonist, which is sometimes the case with authors in Hollywood.
You've been quoted as saying that fiction gives you a truth that reality can't deliver. Would you please talk about that point?
In Reversible Errors, the book and the mini-series, you eventually find out whether Squirrel is guilty or not -- you learn who committed the crime. We crave that certainty. As a lawyer, I've been involved in many cases where you really don't ever know. The jury reaches a verdict, we resolve the case as a practical matter -- but there are often nagging doubts that remain. Juries do a great job, but they're not always right. One of the most frustrating things to me when I was a prosecutor is sometimes you do investigations and you just can't figure out what happened. The mystery novel doesn't ever fail that way. It gives us a truth that real life very often can't deliver. Part of the reason is because you crawl inside the characters' skin and find out how they think and how they feel -- which, of course, we can't do with other human beings, much as we long to. That's the great glory of fiction and storytelling in general.
You've had incredible success seeing your characters move from the page to both the big and small screens. Is there ever a reluctance to make this transition?
There must be something wrong with me as a writer. I know that many novelists find this to be a really painful transition, but I don't. I get a kick out of it. I'm always at pains to say to the creative team, "It's my book, and it's your movie," and I mean it. This is a very powerful medium. I told Tom Selleck that from now on when I pick up Reversible Errors, I will see his face when I read about Larry. While that's true, it's not going to change one word of the novel that I wrote -- which will still be on the shelves for those who want to read it. I take a certain pride in the fact that my story has inspired what looks to me like an absolutely outstanding mini-series. Writing is so insular. I write by myself and it's really basically child's play made large. You're caught up in your imagination. To go from the utter privacy of your own head to the point where the story that grew there has got this kind of physical reality with (Turow gestures around the set) these fine actors and this vast crew working, it's mind blowing. It's really an out-of-body experience, and I find it a really pleasant one. I feel no need to control this.
Were you involved in the writing of the script?
My philosophy about this is that I want to be useful. Before Alan Sharp [who wrote "Rob Roy"] signed on to write it, Mike [Robe] and I had an initial phone conference with him during which Alan talked about some of his ideas. I said, "This guy sounds great." I made certain comments on his outline, although very few. The tough part about turning a novel into a film is to find the movie inside the book. If you filmed everything in Reversible Errors, it would run three to four times the length of this mini-series. So, the writer has to make a lot of choices; the story's got to be shrunk. I saw from the beginning that Alan's choices were smart ones. I can't overstate how strong this screenplay is. Every book I have written, save my essay about capital punishment, has been sold for features or TV movies. I have read so many screenplays from my books; last week somebody sent me two different screenplays based on one of my novels. So I have enough experience to be able to say this was a great screenplay. When I read the final screenplay that was going to CBS for approval I said, "This is just fabulous." Believe me, the novelist doesn't always say that. Though the screenplay is very faithful to the novel, Alan was never a slave to it. Frankly, what's in every novelist's best interest is that they make a good film out of your book. Being faithful to the novel and making a crappy movie is no favor to anybody.
Share some of your thoughts about the lead cast members who are bringing your characters to life.
(Turow smiles enthusiastically) Pretty great cast. Mike [Robe] from day one envisioned [William] Macy as [Squirrel's attorney] Arthur. To me the humbleness and humanness of Bill Macy that comes through was just ideal for Arthur, who as a character is always bounded by his decency. I also loved the fact that Tom Selleck was cast as [homicide detective] Larry, who is a very complicated guy. Larry is a character who, at moments, wanders through the wrong doors, so it's important to me that an actor who is as dear to the American viewing public, as Tom is, play that part. I see Larry as being fundamentally good, so Tom gives him credibility and that forwards my own vision of this story.
Are any of the characters based on people you've encountered in your work as a lawyer?
I've never been comfortable with characters who are real people disguised because they seem to me to restrict a writer's imagination. I've talked earlier about the way the writing of this book, just like every other book, surprised me. It's hard to be the beneficiary of those kinds of surprises if the characters are intended to bear a one-for-one resemblance to real people. Besides, I'm not sure my clients would appreciate picking up a novel seeing themselves.
In the book and the mini-series, years after the crime, Squirrel denies he's guilty even though he confessed to the triple homicide on videotape at the time. In your experience, how likely is it that an innocent person would confess to a crime he/she didn't commit?
When the possibility of a false confession is addressed in the mini-series, I'm sure some people will watch and say "Oh, that doesn't really happen!" But, false confessions do happen, especially with people who have intellectual deficits, such as Squirrel. It was a shock to me, especially as a former prosecutor, to find out, but people do confess to things that they have not done - especially under rigorous, maybe lawful, but still tough, police questioning. There are all kinds of ways the system can go wrong.
Elaborate on the flaws in the system…
The system can be no more perfect than we are as people. I'm not one of these types who hangs my head because the justice system can't be perfect. We try very hard… However, I think for me the biggest revelation, even beyond the particulars of false confessions or false eye-witness identifications, was the fact that the very monstrous crimes that get prosecuted in murder cases often end up being a pathway to error because we're all so frightened. There's so much pressure on the police and prosecutors to come up with a culprit. We all want to go back to our sense of security, and it's easy to make mistakes. We've done it. We've done it a lot. We clearly need a criminal justice system to sequester people who are a danger to the rest of us, but we have to be careful in what we ask the system to do. When we start asking it to become a symbol - instead of fulfilling some practical function - it doesn't work well enough.
Also, there's a race effect across the United States where, in the capital system, we end up replicating all of the inequalities that exist in the society. You're three and a half times more likely to be sentenced to death for killing a white person than for killing a black person. It's hard to imagine how many of the problems in the capital system are going to get erased. I understand the people who want to continue to struggle to do that, but I don't think that it's going to happen.
Like every other lawyer, I see the world through my cases. The experience of sitting on [former Illinois] Governor George Ryan's Commission on Capital Punishment had me looking at a whole universe of cases. Suddenly, I was in the position to make systemic judgments instead of just judgments about the isolated, individual cases I worked on as a lawyer. (Editor's Note: In the year 2000, prior to the commission, Gov. Ryan had imposed a moratorium on the death penalty. The commission submitted 85 recommendations in a report in April 2002, and, in January 2003, he commuted the sentences of 167 people on death row and pardoned four others. Ultimately, the Illinois legislature passed a reform package regarding capital punishment.) The most striking thing to me was just trying to make sense of who got sentenced to death and who didn't. I started reading through the first-degree homicide cases and I couldn't make any sense of it -- and it wasn't because good people weren't trying to do the right thing. Yet, it ends up being a moral hodgepodge.
What are your feelings about the death penalty?
I don't criticize anybody's position on the death penalty because I truly have held all opinions during the course of my life. As a college student I thought it was barbaric, because "all human beings are fundamentally good at heart." I became a prosecutor, which changed my beliefs about that. There are some people who have been maimed by circumstance and are not good at heart. I really understand the approach of law enforcement people. When it's your responsibility to make sure that other people in your community remain safe, you do not want to spend a lot of time trying to understand the people who are dangerous to that community and your fellow citizens. That's the way I felt when I was a prosecutor.
When I became a defense lawyer, I, of course, saw other sides of it. I saw that horrible errors can be made. I have seen perpetually how the system functions for the poor. Although I'm not letting anybody in on any secrets, the truth of the matter is that the Squirrel Gandolphs of the world [the underprivileged African-American death row inmate in Reversible Errors] don't generally get the same justice as the well-to-do. So, I think I have a complicated appreciation of the subject.
Do you think justice can ever be served with an execution?
Choosing a case that's no longer in the news, I hesitate to say it was unjust to execute John Wayne Gacy, a serial killer in Illinois who took 33 lives. (He was executed in 1994.) There's too much of the community's sense of what is just that I recognize and respect for me to make that argument. Some people do think it was unjust. Some people believe "Thou Shalt Not Kill" means exactly that in all contexts. I don't go that far. What I do say is this: I wonder if we can ever build a justice system that reaches the rare right cases for imposing the death penalty without also sweeping in the wrong cases - the cases where people are innocent, or, frankly, the far more frequent instances where, in any proportional sense of justice, the person who's sentenced to death doesn't deserve it compared to somebody else. For example, there's the serial killer in Washington State [Green River Killer Gary Leon Ridgway] who admitted to murdering 48 people and is not going to get the death penalty. (Ridgway was sentenced to life in prison on Dec. 18, 2003.). I don't criticize the prosecutor for that decision, but how is it ever going to be proportional for anybody in the state of Washington to be sentenced to death again?
Do you see a move within the legal system toward addressing this question of how the death penalty is being administered?
Yes, certainly not in the near term in the United States, but I think that the courts ultimately will decide that the way we're administering the death penalty doesn't make sense. We've tried to make it more regular, more rational but we just can't do it. The other thing we have to think about is the impact that biotechnology is going to have. We're already familiar with mood-altering drugs, but if you can actually chemically alter somebody's personality so that they're no longer the danger that they've been, is it going to be necessary to execute them? We're a long way from that, but I think those two vectors will end up meeting eventually and result in the abolition of the death penalty in the United States.
Would you be pleased if this mini-series sparked some dialogue about the issues involved in capital punishment?
Sure. I want people to approach this problem understanding the profundity of the arguments on the other side. If you're in favor of abolition [of the death penalty], I want you to understand that there are some people whose conduct is so horrible that you're inspired to rightful wrath. On the other hand, if you're for capital punishment, I want you to confront the fact that this system is extremely imperfect. Add that into your deliberations about it. I've reached my own conclusions during the course of my life, and I'm pretty sure I've come to rest on this issue. But, I respect the rights of people to reach their own views on this really difficult subject.
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