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The Autobiography of an Execution

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To those who have read this book and still stand by your position on the death penalty in America, I say your hearts are very hard indeed.

David R. Dow presents an unflinchingly honest personal account of his life, both private and public. His tone is even considering the work he does; last-minute attempts at trying to save those facing the death penalty in Texas. The most sentimental moments in this book are when he writes of his love for his young son and wife. His clients? Most are guilty, most he neither likes nor cares about, and some are innocent, and he tries not to care. Dow does cares about the law, which, in Texas, is shockingly disregarded. Dow lays out his day-to-day encounters with those who are executed, in spite of their being mentally retarded, in spite of their innocence, in spite of having lawyers who are literally asleep on the job, and because of the state of Texas, which seems not to care about the Constitution of the United States of America.

What I have just written above is far more preachy than what Dow has written. His is a heartfelt, often wrenching book, even with its almost almost noir tone. Others have said the book is rambling, not focused enough. Dow lets us see him as a whole; he has nightmares, doesn't care for famous artists, is worried about being a bad father. Yes, these and other things may seem irrelevant, but how human they are! Dow tells us again and again that he doesn't want to care, but he does. How can he and keep his sanity in the face of such poor odds, and exposed daily to death, bad law, and bad or hardened people on all sides? In Yiddish, one calls a person who can a mensch, and that is what Dow shows he is, a "real man" in the fullest sense of the word, a man with flaws and fears, and who does truly good work without much reward.

At the heart of this book is a story about one client who was probably innocent. This story unfolds amongst many, and it drew me in as well as the most suspenseful thriller. There was no happy ending, and I tried to steal myself against this possibility. This is something that Dow does on a daily basis. How he does this day after day without being an embittered, strident, or miserable human being, I can not fathom.

I had never heard of Dow before I read this book. I admit I am was not in favor of the death penalty before I picked up this somewhat ineptly named book (my only complaint). It sounded interesting, but I did not expect to like it, or be all that moved by it. I generally do not like memoirs or autobiographies. But, this book moved me deeply, and in unexpected ways. I will need time to digest it, and some of it is truly indigestible.

David R. Dow is a person that enhances my faith that people are essentially good.

This is not only a book I would recommend; it is a book I'd give to people. Please read it.

David Dow, professor of law at the University of Houston and active legal representative of numerous deathrow inmates in Texas, offers a candid look at the way he lives around the constant impending deaths of his clients. Without being preachy, the book reveals all of the problems with the death penalty as it is administered in Texas (one of the most bloodthirsty states ). Dow has offered legal and philosophical critiques of the death penalty elsewhere; this book is more personal, and at times (as an epilogue on legal ethics provided by a colleague makes clear) Dow comes very close to transgressing against legal ethics. I found one story in particular quite questionable, since for readers in TX this book will practically be a roman a clef. His criticism of the fifth circuit is particularly intense, and one has to wonder whether this is really wise if he continues to want to work in this area. (To be fair, the fifth circuit is widely considered a notoriously problematic appeals court, even if Dow hadn't said it.)

Of 100 clients he has represented, he has won only seven times. This is a depressing professional life to be leading, and Dow makes clear the absolute drear of this aspect of his life by contrasting it with his own marriage and family. He has difficulty switching gears between the worlds of the condemned and those of the blissfully happy. At the same time, his clients do not have breaks from their confinement -- except in death -- and this fact keeps Dow going. Probably the most dominant aspect of the book is the subtle case Dow makes for the position that the innocence of many of the accused is not the major reason that the death penalty is problematic. Again and again he hammers home the point that the guilt or innocence of the accused is never considered after the original trial, and that appeals will not reverse the judgments of trials based on corrupt or incompetent attorneys, but only attempt to correct administrative errors. This is nothing new to readers familiar with US death penalty law, but Dow's storytelling makes this point clear without preaching. He also makes clear -- perhaps unintentionally -- that administrative issues and cost benefit analysis effect the decisions about lawyers like him about who and how to represent as much as they affect the decisions of the prosecutors.

My only criticism of the book is that if you at all tire of hearing Dow write about what a great father he is, you will find yourself skipping pages whenever he recounts another of the repetitive stories about how his son always forgives him when he is cross. I am glad his kid is so happy, and I think the comparison between his happy family life and the rotten lives of the death row prisoners he helps is interesting, but by the end of the book I was a bit bored with that aspect of the story telling.

Some critiques of this book are of David Dow's purported ego. One has to have a strong ego to do the work he does and I am grateful for it. Some readers seem to miss the reasons names and particular details were altered, despite allegiance to the story itself. (Author's note, "...I have told these stories in a way that is faithful to the truth as well as to the individuals they feature.") In this it is most believable.
Yes, it's a story about how this lawyer--principles, passion and all--balances his responsibility with living wholly himself. Painful balance. Anyone who has ever fought a "losing battle" knows how difficult it is to maintain such equilibrium.
The story of fighting for an innocent man explains most clearly why the death penalty is wrong. The lives of living individuals are regarded without value. Politics over-rides reason and compassion. Human failing is universal, whether one is a murderer or a judge.

At one point Dow refers to Sr. Helen Prejean, a committed activist against capital punishment, and her statement that support for the Death Penalty is a mile wide and an inch deep (he adds that one can die in an inch of water). Good read.

This turned out to be a very compelling read. The title is applicable on several levels. The majority of the book deals with a specific execution. Other cases on which the author worked are discussed primarily because they relate somehow to the central case. But the book is also a memoir of the author who shares his opinions, insecurities, and frustrations with the death penalty process. Readers on both sides of the issue will find this book informative and interesting.

The writing is good, with some idiosyncrasies. For example, the author does not use quotation marks, even when apparently quoting. I assume this is because he is not quoting verbatim. There are no chapters. The structure of the book is a series of short narratives, usually several pages long. The central case proceeds chronologically. The side narratives provide background, including into the author's life. These are often not chronological. At the beginning of the book this was slightly confusing, but was not an issue once the central case took shape.

The author goes to great lengths to explain and justify why he altered the information in the book to protect the confidentiality of his clients. He made other modifications to simplify the story and enhance readability. So is this truly non-fiction? I'm not sure. Probably. The changes are not sufficient to call this historical fiction. I defer to the author about the ethics of his profession, but as a reader, I'm not entirely satisfied with a work of supposed non-fiction that includes facts that have been so altered.

I hoped this book was accurately titled. It is not. It's written as though reader and author are talking about whatever is on the author's mind at the moment but the author keeps getting interrupted by his cell phone. The author explains how he married the wrong woman who turned out to be the perfect woman. And how they really didn't want children but also didn't "not want" them so they had one. And the (very young) child is (emotionally) smarter than his dad. And the lawyer who represented the condemned man didn't ask a single question on cross examination but the condemned man likely wouldn't have been convicted or, at least, wouldn't have been sentenced to death if he'd had competent representation. And he really likes fine Bourbon Whiskey which his wife bought him for their special anniversary which they drink while telling each other ....

He - the author - is a nice guy, apparently (according to his son) a good father who is also a "bookish" kind of guy who handles death penalty appeals. He says he focuses on the appeal at hand to the extent his home life suffers and he forgets his promises to his son. He fired a lawyer once because the lawyer left every day at 5. He and the prosecutor picked the day his client was to die - arranged it around their vacations - and that upset him so he canceled the law school class he was teaching. All the jumping around with short, declarative sentences and the style choice of no quotation marks (he hints he's a fan of Cormac McCarthy) made reading the book a chore. I finally got to the point of trying to skim past the trivia to get to what I had thought was the point of the book. But that's no way to read a book.

I assume his briefs and arguments on appeal are much more focused than this story which jumps from the food ordered at the restaurant to the son's nightmares to the folly of trying to prove innocence after the conviction to the human side of the condemned man and how it makes no difference. It's not that he's bitter or excited or, really, has any emotional involvement with his work. I felt that, if he and I were having coffee and I asked, "why do you do what you do?" his answer would be "somebody has to so I guess it's me." Which also is the apparent reason for writing the book.

That's the real problem with the book, I think. Thinking people already know the death "penalty" is wrong - even as a means of revenge. It simply is a way to demonstrate hate with no practical purpose or spiritual value. The ideas that it provides "closure" and prevents more murders by the condemned man are just silly attempts to rationalize the irrational. But the book makes the unintentional point of why we still kill people as retribution - why we, essentially, are no different than Taliban or Iranians when it comes to meting out a "penalty." Dow raves silently. At one point he says, "I could have done more" - just as it ends. That's what the book should be about - if it really is to be an "autobiography." It's ok to talk about his dog and wife and son - it establishes him as a human being. But if it's an "autobiography of an execution" then the condemned ought to be speaking more. And if it's an argument against the death "penalty" then the judges who got it so wrong ought to be fleshed out. But Dow simply points out they are wrong. And leaves it to the reader to be outraged while impotent. He ought to be saying things like, "folks - the death penalty is not because of judges or juries or anyone other than us - the people who supposedly are represented by our representatives who write the laws. But "us" wants bloody revenge done in a sterile environment out of sight. And "us" who spout biblical phrases attributed to the god who is love, insist on death."

All the "autobiographies" - including this one - and other books on this subject are simply nice reads. What is needed is someone to stand up and say, "Look at yourselves!! and be ashamed of what you are doing. Stop blaming those who you put in the position of carrying out your bloody retribution." Go to church or, at the least, read the bible so many retributionists like to quote out of context and for their own purposes. Read what Jesus Christ said as he was hung from the cross. And then look in the mirror and say "shame on you."

And then go back and read again what his client said to the warden and guards just before the "cocktail" started to flow into him.

"The Autobiography of an Execution" was easily the most heartbreaking non-fiction I've read in a long time. It's a moving insider's account of what the reality of the death penalty in America looks like. An already harsh punishment seems even harsher when you realize how unevenly, unfairly, and sometimes flat out wrongly doled out. The people who end up on death row are, almost exclusively, there because they are poor (and usually a minority) and unable to afford the type of defense that would spare them the death penalty.

This is fantastic content in the form of mostly-ok writing. David Dow definitely has a point of view that needs to be heard, but sometimes his writing is clunky.

"I tell young lawyers who want to be death-penalty lawyers that if it's going to be disabling to watch your clients die, you need to find something else to do. Your clients are going to die."

David R. Dow is a distinguished professor at the University of Houston Law Center and the litigation director at the Texas Defender Service. An author, a husband, a father and a dog lover, Dow has watched men get executed and then gone home to hold hands with his wife and gaze lovingly at his little boy. He has wondered if his son's two-year-old night terrors were his fault, caused by what he brings into the house. In a recent interview with NPR, he talked about how when he leaves his work on death row, he comes home and ritually launders all the clothes he was wearing --- every time.

"I am always hopeful. Nothing ever works out, but I always think that it's going to. How else could you keep doing this work?" Because he believes all killing is wrong, Dow defends the undefended and the indefensible. He knows that the majority of men on his caseload are guilty of heinous crimes. But not all.

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN EXECUTION tells the long story of Dow's work with a man he calls "Quaker" (naturally, the name he chose is symbolic). Quaker was convicted of murdering his estranged wife and two little children, but the murder weapon was never found. There were life insurance policies on the three victims --- that fact stood out in his conviction, along with the well-known wisdom that spouses are always suspects. Quaker had witnessed the deaths of two friends in a fire that consumed part of the chemical plant where he worked; afterwords he became withdrawn, apparently traumatized. He confesses to Dow that he couldn't give his wife, whom he characterized as the love of his life, the "intimacy" she needed. They separated, she and his kids wound up dead, and Quaker found himself on death row in a cell barely big enough to walk in, waiting for his execution date. Setting that date is part of Dow's job. It's all about the ticking clock, the countdown.

Dow intersperses Quaker's story with many others --- other men guilty and perhaps not, a few who cheated the executioner, like the one who was clearly mentally incompetent and whose sentence was converted to life. Dow believes that any method of cheating is okay (like dying before the sentence can be carried out) because he believes that all executions are a miscarriage of justice. He is not, he declares, a religious man. His beliefs are his own. He once threatened a preacher who had wormed his way onto death row and was convincing prisoners to stop pleading for their lives in favor of looking forward to heavenly glory. Yet he admired the preacher for having gotten so close to these hardened souls. Men on death row have lost trust.

Dow lets us in on a harsh world of criminal snitches, lying cops, sleeping lawyers, stupidity, cruelty and legal loopholes, where it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad ones, where racism is a stark fact and death is the known, the norm. He lets us laugh a little and shows us his own contrasting existence as a loving but sometimes absent dad and a caring but often distracted husband. Even his dog sometimes fails to get his attention. But we know that his absence and distraction have a purpose. And his clients are aware of it too. On the night of his execution, a man named Johnny said to him, "You did everything. You were the only one. Now go right home when you leave this hell and hug your son, okay?" So Dow went home and hugged his sleeping son.

Quaker came to trust Dow. And Dow did everything possible within the legal system as it exists to help him, in the process becoming convinced of Quaker's innocence. But that is not necessary for Dow. He will do everything he can for everyone he works for. That is the essential message of this remarkable book.

In Autobiography of an Execution, author David Dow uses several devices to present a compelling argument for the elimination of the death penalty. This is not, however, a dry casuistry, but a personal account that makes a powerful argument at the gut level. This book is memorable and has impact because it is so personal.
Dow claims that he was a supporter of the death penalty, but that his experience has changed his viewpoint.
Dow readily acknowledges that many of his clients have done heinous things. He also admits that he does not like many of his clients. In relating the stories of cases he has worked on, however, he shows that the administration of justice is riddled with injustice, and that the community of people claiming to uphold the law is lawless in its disregard for its administration of that very law.
Before I purchased this book I read a number of reviews that point to Dow's account as be "Unfocused". I think the juxtaposition of a normal family life and the life of his clients is disturbing. Dow's simple pleasures, such as a drink, or a cigar, or the embrace of his son are seen against the unrelenting forces working against his clients. Dow's life as a family man stands in contrast with Quaker, also a family man, sentenced to die for murder. The juxtaposition of the two made this book real and vivid: both men profess love for their wife and family, but circumstances make the inmate, Quaker, powerless to change his fate, though his love for his family appears to be no less than Dow's.
Dow does an excellent job of portraying the chaos associated with an execution through a seemingly disjointed chronology: neither he, nor the condemned, nor, seemingly, the system itself has any real idea of when boards of pardon, courts of appeal, the Supreme Court, or any other party will rule. Not only is the timing of the ruling questionable, but the steps leading to it and the logic of the ruling are equally dubious. By showing the inconsistencies in the appellate process Dow shows the randomness of the death process. In effect Dow is saying that there is a disconnect between the way we talk about the sanctity of life and the gravity of taking of life and the procedures which lead to the taking of that life. Based on Dow's descriptions, can we truly say the scales of justice are balanced?
I was somewhat put off by what I considered Dow's egocentrism, particularly in passages describing Judge Truesdale's attempted (?) seduction. A story of a woman who aided him in getting home seemed completely gratuitous. On reflection, I can understand that I would need something to shore up my ego if I practiced Dow's trade. Although these, and a bargain to trade infidelities, seemed less than credible, they are not sufficient to mar the otherwise convincing narrative.
This excellent book is a fast read that will challenge the reader to reflect on the justice of and administration of the "ultimate penalty".

... many innocent folks are sent to their death
... many people don't care
... even those who do, like the author, have to choose who to try to save, and who to allow to go to their deaths
... and since the only thing he does is to fight death penalty cases, often his clients can be spared the gurney only to spend the rest of their lives in jail. Once the death penalty has been averted, people are much less likely to be interested in the case.

It really hit home reading this that many people probably know innocent people are being executed, but nobody really cares about it or has the political will to change the way things are done.

As a piece of literature, I could have used fewer details about the author's life, and more about the criminals', and more about the actual legal process. I also would have liked it if more details were available, so we could check news records, etc., ourselves. I know there are legal-ethical issues here. One thing that really disturbed me was the story in the appendix about how a lawyer was forced to let an innocent man rot in jail until the guilty party, his client, passed away, so as not to break confidentiality. I understand the reasoning, but I have to wonder how many other people are suffering in this manner.

I'm not sure if this will convince anyone either way -- people seem to be pretty set in their mindset on this matter -- but it is a great eye-opener into the workings of our justice system.

Lawyers, by their nature, use logic to convince people of things. This lawyer knows that logic doesn't work against the throwback to tribalism that some aspects of our justice system still have. "Deuteronomy trumps the Sixth Amendment every time...and the lonely lawyer declaiming about proper procedures is a shouting lunatic in the asylum whom people look at curiously and then pass by."

Probably the only thing that saves this poor lawyer from going mad are the instances where perfect strangers thank him for what he is doing. Such as the Texas State Trooper who had stopped him while he was speeding to try to save his client from execution. (In this case the man was innocent, but the author's point is that we shouldn't be killing people.) The trooper said, "After you kill the bad guys, you are just as angry as you were before, but there ain't no one left to hate." (I might add that it doesn't bring back the loved one either.)

The book flashes back and forth between the author's normal family life and the race to save the lives of his clients. (By the way, I wonder if he realizes his son is stunningly brilliant.)

I have to warn you that I was in tears at the end of the book. How awful it was to be one of the people who executes a man they all know is innocent.

I heartily recommend this beautifully written book.