Customer Reviews

Legal Lynching: The Death Penalty and America's Future

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Anybody with any viewpoint whatsoever on the subject of the death penalty will want, and need, to review the hard anecdotes that are interspersed within this brief but wide-ranging overview. For those of you who oppose the death penalty on moral grounds, you will fine augmentation for the foundations of your feelings. For those who aren't sure but who are afraid that innocent people might be executed under an imperfect system, the authors provide you with frightening evidence that you're right. And for those looking toward a legislative reconsideration of the entire subject, the appendix is invaluable.

I bought this book with a somewhat self serving hope that the senior Jackson's very entertaining oratory style would be peppered through the text. Regardless of whether I agree or disagree with him, I have always found his public speaking to be entertaining and far livelier then most politicians or activists. With this being said I was disappointed to find out that Jesse Sr. really only was present in the forward and those few pages were very restrained. Not one three subject list, not a rhyme to be found, no fire and brimstone, just a smooth and calm forward to a book that explains a thought out position on capital punishment. This calm tone was held through the book, even in areas that most people start to get a bit excited about, religion, racism etc, the authors kept a level course. Of course to be taken seriously they had to, plus there is the celebrity factor of Jesse Sr. that probably hurts as much as it helps in making the book credible.

So now to the meat of the book. The authors, and I am assuming it was 90% the work of the professional author that was hired to help, give the reader a brief history of the death penalty in America and then a chapter each on the main reasons that the authors feel the death penalty needs to be eliminated. Again to be fair to the authors the review of the reasons, from bad legal representation to racism and the high rate of conviction reversals to religious questions were all done in a very even handed and one could almost say dispassionate way. I am sure that they felt to have a creditable book the needed to keep a level head and thus have created a book that touches on an excitable topic, but leaves the rhetoric at the door. The authors use a number of examples from the past 25 years, many of which a reader with an interest in the topic would have heard about in the media. The effect is to make the book relevant to the current day and not a historical review of justice in the wild west.

I think the biggest complaint I would have is that the book was not overly deep or presented in such way to give the reader more of the pro capital punishment side. The authors could have put in about 10% more effort on each chapter to have really provided a deep and meaningful book on the subject. By skimming some of the topics it left me feeling I was not getting the full story. And at just a touch over 150 pages of real text they had the room to be a bit more verbose. As to explaining both sides, if you are really going to present a book on the elimination of the death penalty then you are hoping to speak to the people on the fence and to do so I think an honest and well received book would try and cover more of what the pro death penalty people really are after, an eye for an eye. The authors could have touched a bit more on these areas and it would have made the book and argument stronger. Overall I enjoyed the book, it was easy to read, well written and level headed, it just was not too deep.

The facts collected in this timeless piece have flowed from the written page onto the political stage. The truth about executions being used only on the poor is a travesty of American justice. Following this is a study of examples where the execution itself was not performed correctly and thus easily fell into the definition of cruel and unusual punishment. The coup de grace are the convictions of blacks who were murdered by the state only to discover later on that they were innocent. Their deaths were more the result of racism than criminal acts. It is great to see that our political leaders have picked up the call and repeat the examples cited in this as reasons for the abolition of the death penalty.

This book is outstanding in its analysis of this important issue. Particularly insightful is the work of editors (ghost writers?) Denis Gaynor and John McFarlane. Mssrs. Gaynor and McFarlane outline in glorious, living detail the horrors of a death penalty culture. Highly recommended.

Two to three thumbs up!