Ultimate Punishment, A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty, by Scott Turow. (pp 164) Published 2003. As the title suggests, this book is about the author’s ruminations about the death penalty, specifically about the state laws, law enforcement actions, and judicial practices in the state of Illinois. The framework is his participation on a Governor-appointed commission investigating the death penalty arising from a belief that there were flaws in all levels of the Illinois system that imposed death penalties on a small fraction of convicted criminals. Not being a reader of the author’s bestselling novels about the law, my only exposure to Turow the lawyer was his book One L., a book about the first year of law school which I read months before entering law school. To bring the factual and procedural issues addressed in the book to life, Turow weaved into them several death penalty cases on which he worked, including some to exonerate prisoners whose convictions were overturned, either because of their innocence and/or gross breeches of proper procedures that were found to result in inequitable application of the law. Because of the specifics of Illinois laws, the findings and recommendations of the Commission (the preamble of which is included in the text) are specific to that state, but the broader principles of equality under the law; sometimes capricious application of laws; police and prosecutorial misconduct; poor judicial oversight,; morality; the issues of retribution, redemption, and deterrence; fundamental problems with eye witness testimony; unreliable or uncorroborated testimony; emotion-driven decision-making; and other consequential factors are applicable everywhere. This is a compact, well-thought out consideration of these issues, presented in ways that offer the viewpoints of both pro- and anti- death penalty advocates. Turow states that the seminal question is “whether a system of justice can be constructed that reaches only the rare, right cases, without also occasionally condemning the innocent or the undeserving.” Great book for those interested in the subject matter.
( )

Bien aimer se livre et son déroulement... Facile a suivre j'ai aimé voir les deux côtés de la médailler. J'ai hésité lorsque je l'ai acheté mais je suis très heureuse de l'avoir lu. ( )

Novelist Scott Turow writes about his struggle to come to grips with the death penalty. This non-fiction work describes the evolution of his thought process and his sometimes ambivalent reasoning while he served on the Illinois Commission that investigated the effectiveness of the punishment and proposed important reforms to make its imposition more equitable.

Turow discusses the lack of effective deterrence, the lack of like punishment for like crimes due to problems with felony murder, and a number of inmates who end up exonerated or with lesser sentences because the evidence does not warrant the death penalty upon reflection. But Turow also highlights some of the heinous crimes that make arguments against the death penalty hardest to make because of the need for harsher punishments to protect society from ultimate evil.

This is an honest look at the conflicting feelings most of us share about the death penalty and its imposition. It is well worth reading and reflecting upon. ( )