Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty - Softcover

Turow, Scott

Softcover

ISBN 10: 031242373X ISBN 13: 9780312423735

Publisher: Picador, 2004

Synopsis

A gripping examination of the case for and against capital punishment by a respected criminal lawyer and celebrated novelist. In the words of Harvard Law Professor, Laurence H. Tribe--"Ultimate Punishment is the ultimate statement about the death penalty: to read it is to understand why law alone cannot make us whole."

As a respected criminal lawyer, Scott Turow has been involved with the death penalty for more than a decade, including successfully representing two different men convicted in death-penalty prosecutions. In this vivid account of how his views on the death penalty have evolved, Turow describes his own experiences with capital punishment from his days as an impassioned young prosecutor to his recent service on the Illinois commission which investigated the administration of the death penalty and influenced Governor George Ryan's unprecedented commutation of the sentences of 164 death row inmates on his last day in office. Telling the powerful stories behind the statistics, as he moves from the Governor's Mansion to Illinois's state-of-the art "super-max" prison and the execution chamber, Ultimate Punishment has all the drama and intellectual substance of Turow's bestselling fiction.

About this title

About the Author:

Scott Turow is the world-famous author of six bestselling novels about the law, from Presumed Innocent (1987) to Reversible Errors (2002), which centers on a death. He lives with his family outside Chicago where he is a partner in the firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal.

From AudioFile:

In 1999, Governor George Ryan of Illinois asked the author, a lawyer turned novelist, to sit on a commission to study the death penalty. Turow's storytelling ability transforms what he learned during that inquiry into a thought-provoking treatise based upon his experience in capital cases, personal interviews, extensive reading, and the proceedings he attended. His measured, deliberate voice makes sure every word receives the right emphasis, as though he were speaking to a jury. Neither his delivery nor his rhetoric proselytizes, and listeners will never be sure on what side of the polemic he stands, until the last word of the audiobook reveals his verdict. J.A.H. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 031242373X
• ISBN 13: 9780312423735
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 164