Machinery of Death: The Reality of America's Death Penalty Regime [Paperback]

David R. Dow (Editor), Mark Dow (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 2002 | ISBN-10: 041593267X | ISBN-13: 978-0415932677 | Edition: 1

Thurgood Marshall said that the more people learned about the death penalty, the more they wouldd be against it. It is racist, unfair to poor people and the mentally retarded, and far too often ends horribly in the state sanctioned murder of innocents. And no one, no matter how much they're paid, likes to be involved with death itself. In Machinery of Death , death penalty lawyer David R. Dow and writer Mark Dow bring together diverse views from lawyers, wardens, victims' families, executioners and inmates to show how America's death penalty system actually works, and what it does to those who come in contact with it. Arguing that the more we know about the system the more we willl oppose it, the book offers harrowing story after story of racist juries and unjust rulings, of backward judges and public defenders, and of families facing the ultimate decision. Together, these intimate and shocking writings show that in practice, the death penalty is impossible to administer in a fair, workable manner. This is the first death penalty book to look beyond innocence and morality, arguing against executing even the guilty people. Machinery of Death is a crucial link in the fiery public debate over the meaning and usefulness of this deeply flawed system.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This volume brings together lawyers, prison officials, social workers, journalists, and the relatives of murder victims, who all have one thing in common: intimate knowledge of the machinery of death, that is, the rules and procedures leading to a decision to use capital punishment. Death penalty lawyer David R. Dow (George Butler Research Professor of Law, Univ. of Houston) and Mark Dow, a Brooklyn-based freelance writer, have compiled articles filled with compelling evidence that capital punishment is unfairly used against underprivileged minority males. Among the less surprising revelations are that everyone on death row lacks the money to hire a "Dream Team," politics often plays a role in the decision-making process, and the death penalty can be seen as a direct descendant of lynching and other forms of racial violence and racial oppression in America. Nearly all of the contributing authors express a concern for innocent persons being victimized through capital punishment. However, the evidence presented here also reveals that the true root of the problem with false convictions is the judicial system itself. Less historical and more an impassioned, firsthand survey than Stuart Banner's recent The Death Penalty: An American History, this book is recommended for specialized collections in criminal justice. Tim Delaney, Canisius Coll., Buffalo, NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

A thoughtful and compelling book written by people who struggle on the front lines with the machinery of death. It exposes the critical fault-lines: how race and poverty continue to matter; how innocent people can end up on death row; and how constitutional rights are routinely ignored by state and federal judges. Anyone who wants to know how the death penalty really works in America should read this book..
–Barry Scheck, Co-Author, Actual Innocence, and Co-Director, The Innocence Project

This volume brings together lawyers, prison officials, social workers, journalists, and relatives of murder victims who have intimate knowledge of the machinery of the death penalty..
–Future Survey

A compilation of testimonial essays brought together by death penalty lawyer David Dow and journalist Mark Dow, builds the case that the death penalty in any form is irrefutably and inexcusably not decnt. The editors bring together the voices of lawyers, prison personnel, and relatives of murder victims to bear witness to the reality of the death penalty in America..
–Margaret M. Chaplin, M.D., Psychiatric Services

'Machinery of Death' maps familiar fault lines of capitl punishment: its condemnation by the international community; its randomness, striking innocents along with the guilty; its concentration on certain jurisdictions and not others; and its inherent and apparently ineradicable racism. What's new in this remarkable collection of essays is that each was written by a person who has seen the death machine first hand-- attorneys, prison officials, social workers, journalists, and relatives of murder victims-- and how that intimate experience altered their lives.
–The Angolite: The Prison News Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (May 12, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 041593267X
• ISBN-13: 978-0415932677
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,343,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David R. Dow is the Distinguished University Professor at the University of Houston Law Center, and the litigation director at the Texas Defender Service, a non-profit law firm that represents death row inmates. A graduate of Rice and Yale, Dow's areas of expertise include constitutional law and theory, contract law, and death penalty law. Over the past twenty years, he has represented more than one hundred death row inmates in their state and federal appeals. He is also the founder and director of the Texas Innocence Network.

For most of the year, he lives in Houston with his wife Katya, their son Lincoln, and their dog Franklin. During the summers, they live in Park City, Utah, where Dow spends every minute he can on his mountain bike.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must Read, September 8, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Machinery of Death: The Reality of America's Death Penalty Regime (Paperback)

This book is a must read for anybody who purports to have arrived at a conclusion regarding the merits of state execution. It is not an academic examination of the pros and cons of the death penalty in America. Rather, it is a description of state execution arranged in a collection of essays written by people intimately involved in the process. The essays describe the process of state execution from the vantage points of capital defense attorneys, relatives of the victims of capital crimes, and even state executioners. It even includes the transcript of an actual execution that occurred in Georgia in 1984.

I give this book five stars primarily because I do not believe a person should arrive at a firm conclusion with respect to the death penalty on abstact pragmatic or moral/ethical academic arguments alone. One must first understand the process, the nuts and bolts, of state execution and how it affects those most directly and closely involved in either fighting against it or carrying it out. We are, after all, talking life and death. This book serves that purpose marvelously. Nor does it hurt that it is a thoroughly fascinating read.

Happy reading.

1 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Vague and ambiguous, November 20, 2002

By 

Srebrenica Forever (Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Machinery of Death: The Reality of America's Death Penalty Regime (Paperback)

In my opinion, heinous criminal acts must be severely punished. Crimes such as culpable homicide, rape and child molestation deserve the harshest punishment. It is vitally important that the punishment fits the crime. It follows then that crimes of gruesome nature deserve capital punishment whereas misdemeanour should result in mild punishment.
Irrefutably, the primary purpose of a given sentence is to deter people from committing criminal acts. Therefore, it is crucial that prisons act as a deterrant; otherwise the judicial system is purposeless and superfluous. Paradoxically, prisons in Sweden do not deter prospective malefactors; instead they encourage some individuals to commit crimes. This is because prisons in Sweden have frequently been likened to hotels and this is not an exaggeration. This is a fact of life. To my mind, it is preposterous to assume that these modern and sophisticated prisons manage to deter people from committing criminal acts.
A criminal has to fear incarceration, otherwise there is no point in maintaining the judicial system. Capital punishment is considered to be inhumane and ineffective. What we need to ask ourselves instead is are felons humane. Do they repent their atrocious acts? Admittedly, some felons deserve clemency due to mental disorders that may have impaired their ability to know right from wrong. Nevertheless, they should be sentenced to life without parole.
As is well known, many convicted criminals commit additional crimes upon release. Thus, given the fact that a great number of felons relapse into criminality indicates that there are serious flaws in our judicial system. There is no simple solution to this problem. However, there is no doubt that legislators need to be held accountable for making ineffective laws. Most importantly, prisons have to act as a deterrant. Vehement felons who have been convicted of odious deeds should either be imprisoned for life or sentenced to death. Abolitionists would argue that people do not commit abhorrent crimes unless they are deranged. This is true in some cases but we must not generalize. Admittedly, some dangerous malefactors had been subjected to maltreatment in childhood which later led to development of severe mental disorder in adolescence. Nonetheless, traumatic childhood does not justify psychopathy, it merely explains it. In sum, this book provides weak arguments against capital punishment.