The Craig S. Barnard Story 

The following is excerpted from Among The Lowest of The Dead, David Von Drehle, Ballentine Books 1995. The paragraphs have occasionally been rearranged.

Craig Barnard grew up in Portage, Michigan where his father was a conservative Republican accountant and his Uncle was a Republican State Representative. After high school he enrolled in a restaurant and hotel management course at Michigan State. Then the sixties caught up with Craig Barnard. The dutiful young Republican grew his hair long, fell in love with Bob Dylan's music, and began protesting the war. (On his birthday in 1970, four antiwar protesters were killed at Kent State; Barnard never celebrated his birthday again.)

He wanted to do something to change the system, so he switched majors... to prelaw. By then, Barnard's father had moved to southwestern Florida, where he built a retirement village. Craig followed him south, graduating from the University of Florida Law School in 1974.

Barnard joined the public defender's office in Palm Beach County...[and] ...was, very quickly, Jorandby's star assistant; naturally, Jorandby gave him authority over the region's death row cases. Barnard, with his studious bent and modest personality, was drawn to the detail-oriented, conceptual world of appeals. He never missed the hurly-burly of criminal trials.

Read More about Craig S. Barnard . . .