America's leading writer about the law takes a close, incisive look at one of society's most vexing legal issues Scott Turow is known to millions as the author of peerless novels about the troubling regions of experience where law and reality intersect. In "real life," as a respected criminal lawyer, he has been involved with the death penalty for more than a decade, including successfully representing two different men convicted in death-penalty prosecutions. In this vivid account of how his views on the death penalty have evolved, Turow describes his own experiences with capital punishment from his days as an impassioned young prosecutor to his recent service on the Illinois commission which investigated the administration of the death penalty and influenced Governor George Ryan's unprecedented commutation of the sentences of 164 death row inmates on his last day in office. Along the way, he provides a brief history of America's ambivalent relationship with the ultimate punishment, analyzes the potent reasons for and against it, including the role of the victims' survivors, and tells the powerful stories behind the statistics, as he moves from the Governor's Mansion to Illinois' state-of-the art 'super-max' prison and the execution chamber. Ultimate Punishment, this gripping, clear-sighted, necessary examination of the principles, the personalities, and the politics of a fundamental dilemma of our democracy has all the drama and intellectual substance of Turow's celebrated fiction.

The rape and murder of eight-year-old Cary Ann Medlin on September 1, 1979 shook Tennessee to the core. The particular cruelty and viciousness associated with the murder shocked and disgusted the citizens of the Volunteer State. The citizens of the state demanded justice. To the vast majority of Tennesseans, justice meant executing the murderer - and the quicker the better. Ultimate Penalty: Executing Robert Glen Coe is the true story of the events from the murder of Cary Ann Medlin on September 1, 1979 until the execution of Robert Glen Coe more than twenty years after he confessed to the brutal crime. It also deals with the many issues raised from the murder until Coe's final minutes of life on April 19, 2000. Ultimate Penalty: Executing Robert Glen Coe details Coe's long legal battle to stay alive and the frustration felt by Cary Ann Medlin's family and others that wanted Coe put to death for his crimes. Along the way, this book explores in some detail the lives of those involved, paying special attention to Robert Glen Coe's life before he turned murderer. In the interest of truth and justice, there is no unnecessary editorializing in Ultimate Penalty: Executing Robert Glen Coe. There was little need to add any comments outside of the facts. The story speaks for itself. However, in the interest of fairness, some misstatements made in the course of the two decades Coe attempted to avoid the Tennessee death house are exposed. The author briefly sketches the ire that federal judge John Nixon engendered in his efforts to set aside Coe's conviction. The author also discusses Nixon's continuing efforts to delay the Coe execution even after a higher court had overruled him. Ultimate Penalty: Executing Robert Glen Coe looks at some of the political issues wrapped around the Coe execution battle and touches upon the ongoing capital punishment debate and those that favor and oppose it. While the author does not offer an opinion on the subject, he does encourage readers to investigate the issues surrounding the death penalty and to draw their own conclusions. One thing the author does not do is sensationalize. The events are what they are. There is no need for hyperbole or extreme comments. Relating the facts in a simple, straightforward way is the best way to tell this story. Ultimate Penalty: Executing Robert Glen Coe is the first in a series of six books (dubbed the Ultimate Penalty Series) that will tell the true stories of those executed in Tennessee since the year 2000. The facts surrounding the six executions are different, but some of the same issues arose in all of them. While each of the cases meandered through the court system for years, and authorities took pains to ensure that they received due process, there are those who still contend that Tennessee treated the murderers unfairly. Those opposing capital punishment hold that none of the six men put to death deserved execution. Each of the six cases had its own unique set of controversies and those controversies lingered. In some cases, the controversies are not resolved to this day. While each book in the Ultimate Penalty Series relates a story of an execution on its own, the series in total will detail Tennessee's continuing struggle with capital punishment in the 21st Century.

Capital Punishment.

An all-encompassing look at the penalty kick, soccer’s all-or-nothing play—its legendary moments and the secrets to its success No stretch of grass has been the site of more glory or heartbreak in the world of sports than the few dozen paces between goalkeeper and penalty kicker in soccer. In theory, it’s simple: place the ball beyond a single defender and secure a place in history. But once the chosen players make the lonely march from their respective sides of the pitch, everything changes, all bets are off, and anything can happen. Drawing from the hard-won lessons of legendary games, in-depth statistical analysis, expert opinion, and the firsthand experience of coaches and players from around the world, journalist Ben Lyttleton offers insight into the diverse attitudes, tactics, and techniques that separate success from failure in one of the highest-pressure situations sports has to offer.

Nation states and communities throughout the world have reached certain decisions about capital punishment: It is the destruction of human life. It is ineffective as a deterrent for crime. It is an instrument the state uses to contain or eliminate its political adversaries. It is a tool of “justice” that disproportionality affects religious, social, and racial minorities. It is a sanction that cannot be fixed if unjustly applied. Yet the United States—along with countries notorious for human rights abuse—remains an advocate for the death penalty. In these thirteen pieces, Mario Marazziti exposes the profound inhumanity and irrationality of the death penalty in this country, and urges us to join virtually every other industrialized democracy in rendering capital punishment an abandoned practice belonging to a crueler time in human history. A polemical book, yes, yet one that brings together a wide range of stories to compel the heart as well the mind.

Michigan is the only state in the country that has a death penalty prohibition in its constitution—Eugene G. Wanger’s compelling arguments against capital punishment is a large reason it is there. The forty pieces in this volume are writings created or used by the author, who penned the prohibition clause, during his fifty years as a death penalty abolitionist. His extraordinary background in forensics, law, and political activity as constitutional convention delegate and co-chairman of the Michigan Committee Against Capital Punishment has produced a remarkable collection. It is not only a fifty-year history of the anti–death penalty argument in America, it also is a detailed and challenging example of how the argument against capital punishment may be successfully made.