Getting Along For a Long Time: Debra Wilson and Reid Nelson Reflect on 20 Years of Capital Appeals

by Meryl Carver-Allmond, KSBIDS Training Director

While they often get confused for each other and for the larger Appellate Defender Office, for about 20 years now, BIDS has had two freestanding appellate offices dedicated to working on direct appeals for clients sentenced to death – the Capital Appeals and Conflicts Office and the Capital Appellate Defender.  

While the Capital Appellate Defender has changed personnel a few times in those two decades, Reid Nelson and Debra Wilson have been a team at the Capital Conflicts Office for that entire time. I was delighted to talk with them a few months ago about the history of their office and how they’ve made such a long-term partnership work.

While Reid and Debra’s office is the “conflict” office, they laughingly remind me that their office most definitely opened first. “Our office opened even before the Carr cases were filed, in 2002,” Debra told me, “Up to that point, the ADO had been doing capital appeals, but it was decided that a separate office was needed.” Reid and Debra, who had both been with the ADO since the early nineties and worked on some of the earliest capital cases in Kansas, were tapped for the job because of their experience.

In the 20 years since, they’ve learned to work together as a team in the high-pressure, high-stakes world of capital appeals.

“No one goes into the practice of law because they lack self-confidence,” Debra joked. “One thing we did early on was to take turns being lead counsel because, ultimately, someone has to make a final decision.”  Debra paused to think and went on seriously, “More importantly, though, we’ve learned to trust each other.”  

Reid agreed, “Once you start trusting the other person’s work, you begin to see that disagreements are details that hardly make any difference at all. You can have your way on all the details or you can get along. You can’t have both.”  

They also talked about learning to add to each other’s ideas instead of arguing over them.

“When we have conversations about legal topics, we rarely say ‘yes, but’, we say ‘yes, and’. We’re not shooting down each other’s ideas that way – we’re expanding them,” Debra explained.

“It’s so important,” Reid chimed in, “That’s such a common thing lawyers do – playing Devil’s Advocate, disagreeing instead of adding to. You think it’s good, but what it actually does is end the conversation in a way that’s not helpful. At some point, we started adding to, and that’s made a world of difference.” 

In addition to the work they do on capital appeals, Reid and Debra have taken on the role of mentoring newer attorneys in the Third Judicial District Public Defender Office, where their offices are located. Noting that the energy of new lawyers is fun and gives them breaks from their often very long cases, they are both deeply respectful of the hard work that the trial attorneys around them do.  

“They pop in and sit down to talk, and I can share my thoughts and give advice, but ultimately they are the ones that go out and do the hard thing of conducting a trial,” Reid said.

They are also thrilled to have a new attorney in their own office to work with. After years as a duo, Laura Stratton joined their office as a third attorney this fall. “We are so happy to have her!” Debra let me know.

From lending each other reading glasses at oral argument to pitching in on cases to cover emergencies, several capital cases and two trips to the United States Supreme Court later, talking to the two of them can feel a little like sitting down with an old married couple.

I ended our conversation by asking them both to tell me about a time they really felt like the other person had their back. Without even pausing to think about it, Debra said, “I guess I’ve never felt like there was a time that he hasn’t.”  Reid nodded in agreement as Deb reminisced, “We’ve each known each other longer than we’ve known our respective spouses. When Reid and I met, my kids were in preschool. Now I have grandkids. We’ve been getting along for a long time.”