A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays - (Libro en Inglés)

$ 2,092.00
ISBN: 9781620976548
por New
ISBN: 9781620976548
Editorial: New
Autor: Bookman, Marc
Año de edición: 2021
N° Paginas: 208
Tipo de pasta: Pasta dura
Descripción: Biografía del autor Marc Bookman is the director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation and has served in the Homicide Unit of the Defender Association of Philadelphia. He has published essays in The Atlantic, Mother Jones, VICE, and Slate, and been included in seven different editions of Best American Essays. The author of A Descending Spiral (The New Press), he lives in Philadelphia. Powerful, wry essays offering modern takes on a primitive practice, from one of our most widely read death penalty abolitionistsAs 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. Críticas Praise for A Descending Spiral:“Essays from one of America’s most prominent death penalty abolitionists. . . . Bookman creates a clear, comprehensive portrait of a broken system, and the cases he highlights make for fascinating reading.”—Kirkus Reviews“With lucid prose and a firm grasp of history and legal precedent, Bookman makes a persuasive argument that these dozen cases are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to death penalty injustices. This is a cogent and harrowing primer on what’s wrong with capital punishment.”—Publishers Weekly“An absorbing, stirring work. . . . Readers interested in the death penalty and injustice in the U.S. criminal justice system, as well as those who enjoyed Bryan Stevenson’s Just Mercy, will appreciate this title.”—Library Journal“In A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays, Marc Bookman provides such entertainment as he lays out the many ways the American judicial system fails to safeguard the rights of those accused of capital crimes.”—The Provincetown Independent “In twelve compelling essays . . . Bookman makes a clear and irrefutable case for the U.S. to join in banning a punishment relegated by so many other nations to the annals of the past.”—Rain Taxi“No one covers the defects of our nation’s criminal justice system more forcefully or eloquently than Marc Bookman.”—Robert Atwan, series editor of The Best American Essays“In these remarkable essays, Bookman achieves a dispassion that is more incisive and compelling than any overt advocacy. His gift for exquisite irony and his spare, trenchant prose are the perfect tools for exposing the injustices of a legal system that kills haphazardly. Sharpest writing on the death penalty since Koestler and Camus.”—Anthony Amsterdam, university p
  • Idioma: Inglés
  • Autor: Bookman, Marc
  • Editorial: New
  • N° Paginas: 208
  • Tipo de pasta: Pasta dura
  • Envío: Desde EE.UU.