A visit to Death Row
Written: Aug 27 '00 (Updated Aug 27 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good look at a multitude of penal issues
Cons: Sometimes hard to follow the sequence of events
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| pambo's Full Review: |
No matter what your thoughts on the morality or value of the death penalty, Dead Run will make you think again.
This book, written by journalists Joe Jackson and William F. Burke Jr., and not William Styron, as epinions credits (Styron wrote the introduction), tells a story about life on death row at Mecklenburg (Va.) and the mass escape of condemned prisoners that occurred in 1984. All were captured soon after their escape; all, ultimately, were put to death.
It is A story, and not THE story, because the book is told mostly through the perspective of one inmate, Dennis Stockton, who kept a diary right up to the day of his execution. More important, the book is an excellent blend of current events, history of the death penalty, the psychology of criminals, Virginia’s penal history, accounts of correctional system corruption because of woefully inadequate pay, and much more.
What I don’t know is how accurate it all is. I’ve never been in a jail, let alone a prison, in my life. And I don’t know if this book stands as a good look at prisons elsewhere in the country. But it serves other purposes. Are the accounts of day-to-day activities correct or at least accurate about what was happening at this particular prison in the 1980s? Are the ridiculously underpaid guards really operating a drug-smuggling operation on the side? I don't know.
I do know that the most striking aspect of the book is the clear picture of many men who are self-centered beyond belief, who are often total losers in their personal lives, and whose inability to cope with even the ordinary events of life led them to murder, often in the vilest, most disgusting manner possible. There is absolutely no explaining their behavior most of the time. Many are often not very bright, and so, when they flee, head immediately to their old neighborhoods or to the homes of relatives, where they are quickly recaptured.
Reading about some of these characters and their hideous crimes may strengthen the call for more executions.
Many take pleasure in triumphing over other inmates and beating the system as their only victories. What their “victories” say to me is that they have nothing, absolutely nothing else, left. Some folks get fired because of the inmates’ escape. The prisoners get executed. Some victory.
Even Stockton, whose own diary feeds many of the stories told in the book, is hardly sympathetic, though the authors make a pretty good case for his innocence. (Too late, however. Insisting he was innocent, Stockton was executed in 1995).
Though I don’t believe the death penalty is particularly effective, and I think we shouldn’t use it because of the chance of error, it’s hard to feel sorry for many of these characters portrayed in this book. Retribution is a powerful emotion. God forbid any of us ever be put in the position to want to see someone executed.
Jackson and Burke pack tons of information into this book and for that reason alone, you should read it. The quirkiness of the law, the uneven nature of the way it is applied, is recounted here. So, too, are the political issues that often determine whether someone will win a reprieve or be executed.
If you’ve been reading the news lately, you have probably read about several instances where death-row inmates have been freed because evidence that they were innocent was suppressed or ignored for years.
Mistakes do get made, far too often for us to rest easy. There are no Perry Masons out there who can save their clients at the last moment. We might think it could never happen, that something would always turn up to save an innocent person. I don’t believe it.
We need to talk about the death penalty in this country. There must be a reason so many other countries have eliminated it while we continue on. As this book reminds us, there are no rich men on death row. Is anyone paying attention?
Recommended:
Yes
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Member: Pam
Location: Long Island
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