“I want to see my daughter,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Just once. Please let me see Emily before it’s over.”

One guard looked at him with sympathy. Another shook his head.

But the request reached the desk of Warden Robert Mitchell, a 60-year-old veteran who had overseen more executions than he cared to remember. Something about Daniel’s case had always unsettled him. The evidence had seemed airtight—his fingerprints on the weapon, blood on his clothes, a neighbor claiming to see him leaving the house that night.

part2