Inspired by the passion of his late mentor’s dogged representation of a hard-luck prisoner on Alabama’s death row, David A. Kochman will fly to Montgomery sometime in the next few weeks for talks with the state Attorney General’s Office in the cause of freedom for William Ernest Kuenzel, pro bono client of New York labor lawyer David “Duff” Dretzin until his own death a year ago next week.

Mr. Kochman’s trip will come on the heels of his significant victory this month in a federal appellate court, the latest move in a battle long waged by Mr. Dretzin to reverse the 1988 conviction of Mr. Kuenzel for the shotgun slaying of a convenience store clerk in Talladega County—described by the Birmingham Post-Herald as “death row country” due to former District Attorney Robert Rumsey’s record of sending a dozen criminal defendants to a flame-prone electric chair known as “Yellow Mama.” (Alabama changed its primary form of execution to lethal injection in 2002.)

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