As Ruth Bader Ginsburg has noted, people who are well represented at trial
rarely get the death penalty. But as Marc Bookman shows in a dozen brilliant
essays, the problems with capital punishment run far deeper than just
bad representation. Exploring prosecutorial misconduct, racist judges
and jurors, drunken lawyering, and executing the innocent and the mentally
ill, these essays demonstrate that precious few people on trial for their
lives get the fair trial the Constitution demands.
Today, death penalty cases continue to capture the hearts, minds, and eblasts
of progressives of all stripes—including the rich and famous (see
Kim Kardashian’s advocacy)—but few people with firsthand knowledge
of America’s “injustice system” have the literary chops
to bring death penalty stories to life.
Enter Marc Bookman. With a voice that is both literary and journalistic,
the veteran capital defense lawyer and seven-time
Best American Essays “notable” author exposes the dark absurdities and fatal inanities
that undermine the logic of the death penalty wherever it still exists.
In essays that cover seemingly “ordinary” capital cases over
the last thirty years, Bookman shows how violent crime brings out our
worst human instincts—revenge, fear, retribution, and prejudice.
Combining these emotions with the criminal legal system’s weaknesses—purposely
ineffective, arbitrary, or widely infected with racism and misogyny—is
a recipe for injustice.
Bookman has been charming and educating readers in the pages of
The Atlantic,
Mother Jones, and
Slate for years. His wit and wisdom are now collected and preserved in
A Descending Spiral.