Finding Life On Death Row: Profiles of Six Inmates [Hardcover]

Executions in the U.S. are usually carried out with little fanfare, and the public rarely knows much about who is being killed in its name. In this disturbing book, Lezin, a freelance writer who used to work at the office of career services at the Georgetown University Law Center, puts a human face on the debate about capital punishment. Her even-handed presentations of the cases of six death-row inmates, drawn from the files of Stephen Bright, director of the Southern Center for Human Rights, introduce readers to the inmates, the victims, the families, horrible crimes and horrible judges. As attorney Bright notes in his informative foreword, "A society that employs such an enormous, severe, irreversible, and violent penalty, which has been discarded by much of the rest of the world, should at least know whom it is killing." All six cases here are from the South: one is a woman, two have already been executed. The variety of their backgrounds and circumstances serves to highlight many of the injustices inflicted upon minorities, women and the poor. Lezin admits her bias at the outset, stating that she is "adamantly opposed to the death penalty" and that Bright assisted "with all aspects of researching and writing" the book. But Lezin presents each case with no commentary beyond a brief preface. Still, the facts make a compelling argument that the system is too riddled with discrimination and injustice to be morally or constitutionally sound.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lezin, a former assistant director at Georgetown University Law Centers career services office, presents a nuanced, original broadside against the death penalty. Her study takes the form of six dramatic narratives of condemned prisoners whose cases have been addressed by attorney Stephen Bright in his capacity as director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. In building evidence toward the fundamental barbarity and illogic of the death sentence, she begins by establishing that, at least statistically, our embrace of it darkly stains the US (when compared to the majority of industrialized nations). She provides six disturbing examples of the grim equation of political expedience, public vengeance, poverty, and misfortune that often result in the ultimate punishment. Some defendants were genuinely unhinged from undiagnosed schizophrenia or drug addiction during their crimes; nearly all were initially represented by incompetent, apathetic, or drunken attorneys. Particularly in the southern states death belt (from which these cases are drawn), such mitigating factors as long-term neglect, retardation, or in one case a battered womans imminent danger were rarely considered, and arguably, ambitious judges bettered their political records through liberal use of the death sentence. Lezin provides surprisingly sympathetic portraits of the six inmates (two since executed, one eventually freed), particularly making efforts to highlight ways in which these individuals have paradoxically bettered themselves, as in the case of the apostle of death row, who was electrocuted in Georgia even after numerous appeals by the clergy. These personal narratives are interspersed with reconstruction of the lengthy legal maneuvers which the attorney teams pursued for their mostly destitute clients. Relatively little consideration is given to the ramifications for victims families, making this book unlikely to be popular among their advocates. Still, the author takes an incendiary subjectthe lives of those deemed fit to be killed by the stateand defuses it with a sensitive, humanistic, and sustained treatment. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"In this disturbing book, Lezin puts a human face on the debate about capital punishment." --Publishers Weekly

"The author takes an incendiary subject--the lives of those deemed fit to be killed by the state--and defuses it with a sensitive, humanistic, and sustained treatment."--Kirkus Reviews

"The book provides some insight into a topic that still needs definition. It is a compelling and involving read."--National Law Journal

Joseph Carl Shaw, a military policeman who suffered from schizophrenia and attempted to medicate himself with illegal drugs, committed three murders after being turned away from a mental health clinic; a court-appointed lawyer advised him to plead guilty and put his fate in the hands of a politically ambitious judge who sentenced him to death. Judy Haney was convicted of killing a man who had abused her and her children; she was represented by a lawyer who appeared in court so drunk that the presiding judge sent him to jail to dry out, and then later appointed the same lawyer to handle Haney's appeal.

For many prisoners on death row, the stories are similar, the dispensing of justice questionable. Katya Lezin now shows in this thought-provoking book how an array of factors often lead people to commit capital crimes -- and how perfunctory treatment by judges and court-appointed attorneys often leads them to death row.

Drawn from the case files of appeals attorney Stephen B. Bright, Lezin provides illuminating profiles of six convicted murderers, two of whom have been executed. She tells about the crimes, life circumstances that contributed to the capital offenses, the legal cases, and the torment endured by the families of the condemned. Her compelling portraits of these men and women underscore the question of whether the death penalty is more often imposed on the poorest and most vulnerable perpetrators rather than on the worst criminals.

Lezin's work goes behind the slogans of the war on crime to unmask the human face of capital punishment. It casts new light on the inequities inherent in the criminal justice system and offers food for thought for anyone struggling with the moral dilemmas raised by the death penalty.

Katya Lezin is former Assistant Director for Government and Public Interest at the Office of Career Services at the Georgetown University Law Center. She is currently a freelance writer living in Charlotte, North Carolina. Stephen B. Bright is Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.