In the summer of 1972, Joan Cheever was keeping an eye on the Marco Polo players at the San Antonio Country Club pool as a high school lifeguard when the Supreme Court handed down its landmark Furman vs. Georgia decision declaring the death penalty unconstitutional. Cheever paid it little mind; she was more concerned with her tan. Little did she know that some 20years later the decision (reversed in 1976) would practically consume her life. After a college summer internship with the San Antonio Light, as a reporter assigned often to the "cop shop," and a law degree from St. Mary's University, Cheever found her true love: journalism. As managing editor of the National Law Review, Cheever knows the meaning of a deadline. As a lawyer representing a man on death row for nine years, Cheever knows the meaning of dodging a deadline — she and co-counsel Robert Hirschhorn had San Antonio convicted killer Walter Williams' execution for the murder of a convenience store clerk postponed four times.