Ultimate Punishment

A lawyer's reflections on dealing with the death penalty.

Scott Turrow

Revue by Christine Hasan

Ultimate Punishment - A lawyer's reflections on dealing with the death penalty.

Scott Turrow's experience as a best selling author of novels about the law, has given him the skills to make the unpalatable truth of America's fixation with murder, into something that we can all comprehend.
Using his immersion into the melee of the judicial system as an Assistant United States Attorney in Chicago as his starting point, Turrow describes his own personal journey from someone who " relished their victory" to a reasoned person who understands that the "horror and revulsion (of murder) undermine our capacity to reason."
Throughout the book, Turrow lays out the points of view of everyone involved in death penalty issues in a clear and level headed way. He never seeks to moralize or sensationalize and is very open about the areas in which the system is flawed.
At the end of his personal moral journey, which has seen much vacillation on his part, he reaches the conclusion that ultimately, in certain circumstances, the death penalty is a just and moral punishment.
Whilst this is a viewpoint that is abhorrent to me personally, I found myself nodding my head in acquiescence on several occasions.
Overall it is a thoughtful and eminently readable book. His closing arguments, as a member of the Governor of Illinois's Commission on Capital Punishment , give an extremely well argued account of how and under what circumstances death penalty sentencing should be laid down. The final verdict, is of course, yours to make!

This book (ISBN: 0-312-42373-X) is published by Picador Books