ford was assigned two attorneys by the state due to his inability to pay for a lawyer on his own. both were selected from an alphabetical listing of lawyers from the local bar association. the lead attorney was an oil and gas lawyer who had never tried a case, criminal or civil, before a jury. the second attorney had been out of law school for only two years and worked at an insurance defense firm on slip and fall cases. prosecutors were able to take advantage of the defense's inexperience and use a peremptory challenge capacity to keep african americans off the jury, resulting in an all caucasian jury with a caucasian judge. ford was convicted and sentenced to death by the jury without a murder weapon linking him to the crime, and with evidence from confidential informants withheld.