Proximity to Death - Softcover

McFeely Ph.D., William S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393321045 ISBN 13: 9780393321043

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001

Synopsis

"A remarkable book―part historical tract, part political manifesto―that examines one of the most bitter issues of contemporary life."―Boston Globe

On a misty September morning in rural Georgia, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian found himself cast in a role that he had never imagined for himself: an expert witness in the sentencing trial of a convicted kidnapper, rapist, and murderer. His brief testimony that day would ultimately lead him on a personal journey into the criminal justice system, to confront the actions and decisions of lawyers battling for and against the death penalty, convicts whose lives are at stake, and jurors forced to decide who shall live and who shall die.

About this title

About the Author:

William S. McFeely is Abraham Baldwin Professor of the Humanities, Emeritus, at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Yankee Stepfather: General O. O. Howard and the Freedmen; Grant: A Biography, for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the Parkman Prize; Frederick Douglass, which received the Lincoln Prize; Sapelo’s People: A Long Walk into Freedom; and Proximity to Death.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A slender, forceful volume from Pulitzer-winning historian McFeely (Grant, 1981; Sapelos People, 1994) that examines the work of Stephen Brights Southern Center for Human Rights in defending the indigent of Death Row against the states killing apparatus. McFeely encountered Bright when solicited for testimony in a death-case appeal regarding the symbolic implications of the Confederate flags placement within the Georgia flag. Intrigued by Brights creativity in countermanding his clients sentences, and startled by his quasi-Gothic encounter with death penalty reality, hes produced an analysis of this seemingly quixotic fight on behalf of the condemned. Following Brights maxim that even murderers possess more humanity than their worst action indicates, McFeely succeeds in both illuminating Brights often scorned work and portraying the penaltys effect on all those it ensnares, including jurors, families of victims and perpetrators, and sundry protesters. In keeping with his title, McFeely endeavors to discern the life in the midst of the mainstreamed execution culture of the southern death belt. His findings are unsettling: for example, the travails of a man whose 1977 death sentence is only commuted via a 1991 Bright-helmed retrial subtly evoke the absurdly timeless terror such inmates experience. Additionally, this historian discerns without rhetorical overkill the deeply race- and class-based inequities that have long compromised the application of capital punishment. He explores how public enthusiasm for it rises in times of war or domestic upheaval, and finds that generally, its application is determined by such factors as local outrage, political expedience, and initially poor legal representation. Also within is a provocative, disturbing portrayal of how determined southern legislators forced an end-run around the Supreme Courts seemingly impermeable 1972 decision against capital punishment. McFeely succeeds in paying tribute to the maverick attorneys who pursue this unpopular, unremunerative work so vital to constitutional interests. He succeeds equally in his consideration of how this quintessentially American punishment stabs at the souls of all citizens, not least those who regard it as natural and just. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0393321045
• ISBN 13: 9780393321043
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208