Debating the Death Penalty

"From the commuting of death sentences to life imprisonment and the pardoning of four death-row prisoners last year by former Illinois governor George Ryan, the death penalty has now come front and center in American consciousness. This collection of essays presents a balanced discussion of the range of issues associated with this debate, including the speech delivered by Ryan when he made his historic decision. The essayists include federal judges, lawyers, and philosophers. Four of the essays argue for the death penalty and four against. Contributors examine the key areas concerning the death penalty: race and economics, the U.S. position on capital punishment in contrast to that of other nations, retribution and morality, the risks of wrongful convictions, the deterrence value of capital punishment, and closure for victims families. Contributors emphasize their own particular points of view but add to an excellent overview of this life-and-death issue." --Booklist
"The controversies over capital punishment in the United States grow more heated each year, but there is very little discourse by public intellectuals on the meaning and legitimacy of death as a criminal punishment. This collection is an important attempt to fill that gap, to map out the key questions in contention and the evidence available to answer them. It is a civilized and serious examination of a profoundly important fault line in the American legal system." --Franklin E. Zimring, William G. Simon Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and author of The Contradictions of American Capital Punishment
"At long last, an intelligent, well-reasoned debate and a much needed balanced discussion of this most serious and vexing issue in our system of criminal justice. Some of the most prominent and outspoken supporters and opponents of capital punishment get to have their say in a thoughtful and reasoned discourse. At least, in this publication, supporters of capital punishment are given equal and appropriate treatment of their views on a subject most often swept under the rug or obscured by emotionalism." --Lynne Abraham, District Attorney of Philadelphia
"Brings fresh energy to an ongoing national conversation. It brings together some of the best thinkers and gets the best out of them. It contains up-to-date commentaries, all of which are lucid, engaging, and provocative. This book will be a singular resource for students of capital punishment for years to come." --Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College
"It is not often that subtlety enters the death penalty debate in America. But Debating the Death Penalty achieves just that by bringing together the views of eight men who have very different ways of thinking about the subject. The book's most unique contribution is the way it reveals the humanity and good faith of those who support the ultimate penalty; as they struggle with the gravity of their own conclusions, they remind us that our compassion and our duties as a civil society must flow toward the victim of crime as well as the accused." --Carla Main, Opinion Page Editor of The National Law Journal