Congregation of the Condemned: Voices Against the Death Penalty [Paperback]

Shirley Dicks (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1995

Editor Shirley Dicks's son Jeff was involved in a robbery attempt that resulted in the death of a storekeeper. A bungled defence led to his conviction for murder; he has been on death row since 1979. Dicks has become bitterly aware that justice in America is dealt out not blindly, but selectively. "People have been sentenced to death not because they have been found to be uncontrollably violent but because they were hopelessly poor...They are the losers in an arbitrary lottery. You won't find a wealthy person on death row. A system like this does not enhance respect for human life; it cheapens and degrades it."

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This is gripping reading. The words of death-row inmates on the subject of capital punishment jump off the page. Fear, hope, bitterness, regrets, love and the anguish of their last minutes are all here. The book is compiled by the mother of Tennessee death-row inmate Jeff Dicks. He's here too. So are other relatives of inmates and victims. Doctors, activists, lawyers, Edward Kennedy, Coretta Scott King, Mario Cuomo and Camille Gabriel, mother of a murder victim, also contribute essays. Among their persuasive conclusions: it is the poor who are executed, and some of them are innocent. "What good is the law if it can't protect the innocent from false imprisonment?" asks one inmate. This book makes one wonder.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Over forty essays call for an end to the death penalty, gathered by Shirley Dicks, whose son is on death row for his role in a robbery which resulted in a storekeeper's death. Dicks maintains that those sentenced to death are the poor; while wealthy criminals with similar crimes are allowed lighter penalties. The collection makes a point. -- Midwest Book Review

Product Details

• Paperback: 290 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books; 2nd Edition edition (March 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879759704
• ISBN-13: 978-0879759704
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,422,156 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born and raised in Concord, NH and moved south back in the 70s, ending up in TN. With four kids, I lived in NC for a few years until moving to middle Tn and began to write.

My first three books were bought by McFarland co, called, Death Row, Victims, and From Vietnam To Hell. Next, I sold Young Blood and Congregation of the Condemned by Prometheus Books and New Horizon Press took They're Going To Kill My Son which was my life story. However they changed things, names and all so eventually I rewrote it, brought it up to date and began to self publish my own books, called, A Mothers Torment, www.amotherstorment.com

I self published The Choice Is Yours, A Long Road Home, The Devil's Playground, and There IS Life After Fifty. McFarland is now republishing my first three books that had gone out of print and now I'm putting them up as ebooks.


Now that I'm in my seventies, I'm trying to learn photography now in order to do some travel articles with photos. Also working on two non fiction books plus a romance.

My oldest son Jeff Dicks was killed in 1999 due to medical neglect and I lost my youngest son Trevor Dicks who spoke out on the death penalty issue with me at schools and colleges, due to a car crash. I adopted Jeff's daughter when she was born and she's now in her thirties with three beautiful children of her own.

I try to keep busy with my writing, my photography, spending time with my three beautiful great grandchildren, crocheting and anything I can do.

Will be adding my books as ebooks in the near future

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars All who claim to be pro-life must read this book, January 27, 2012

By 

C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Congregation of the Condemned: Voices Against the Death Penalty (Paperback)

Shirley Dicks gathered these forty essays on capital punishment after her son himself was placed unjustly on death row.

She observed first hand, wrenchingly, the inexorable injustice of this evil system of state-sonsoerd and enforced death, this legalized murder.

Here she gathers forty voices, against the death penalty, to speak to us eloquently, logically, emotionally, why.

Shirley Dicks has published other works on the immorality, the injustice of capital punishment, here in this, one of the few nations left which practice this barbaric and fruitless custom. Please read carefully her Young Blood: Juvenile Justice and the Death Penalty, and her associated From Vietnam to Hell: Interviews With Victims of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. Also read her Death Row: Interviews with Inmates, Their Families and Opponents of Capital Punishment and her Victims of Crime and Punishment : Interviews with Victims, Convicts, Their Families, and Support Groups. Please see They're Going to Kill My Son and A Long Journey Home and so much more from this great national treasure of justice and peace, this great pro-life voice, who despite, or through, her own pain, crafts so many important books crucial to our understanding and thus to our healing as a nation, with a chance to rejoin the community of civilized nations which kill no more.

These forty essays in themselves serve to warn us off from the death penalty, including expert as well as personal testimony from all areas of our society. NGO's against capital punishment, including the US Catholic Bishops, find voice here against the death penalty. The great Sister Helen Prejean also finds room for her wise and learned voice, to warn us to kill no more.

As the head of the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace declared a few winters back, the death penalty is murder.

Thou shalt not kill.

Read this book and work, to stop killing.