Ultimate Punishment

Scot Turow, Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty, Picador, 2003. ISBN: 0330426885.

Scot Turow is, it turns out, pretty well known as a novelist. However, he is also a practising lawyer and it is in this capacity that he wrote Ultimate Punishment, a reflection of capital punishment in the US legal system. In 2000 the then Republican Governor of Illinois George Ryan issued a moratorium on the execution of death penalty convictions; this had been prompted because since 1977 when the death penalty Illinois had killed 12 people however, in that same period 13 people had been released from custody after the convictions were found to be unsound. Given the evidence of procedural unfairness Ryan established a commission to recommend changes to the Illinois Criminal Justice System so that when a person is sentenced to death there is legal certainty that they did in fact commit the crime for which they were convicted. Scot Thurow was on of those asked to sit on the commission and this book is a personal reflection if the place of capital punishment within a criminal justice system. Thurow begins with personal stories such as taking on the appeal, pro bono, of Alejandro Hernandez who was to become one of the thirteen individuals released from prison acquitted of the alleged crime. An innocent man Hernandez had repeatedly failed to appeal the decision even though a credible confession to the crime was made by an unrelated individual, a confession that prosecutors resolutely ignored and failed to pass to defense lawyers or the judiciary. Such malfeasence as the report (which included prosecution lawyers) found was not unique and they recommended significant (although hardly revolutionary) changes to prosecution procedures.

Ultimate Punishment is not, strictly speaking, an argument against capital punishment; in fact, Turow confesses that in some circumstances he would still support (in principle) execution - Turow cites the example of John Wayne Gacy. Instead, Ultimate Punishment has the air of a reflective diary/notebook it is not a thorough argument for or against the death penalty but some intitial probings into the subject areas such as, Is it a deterrent? Is it cost effective? Is it inherently prejudiced along colour lines? etc. And, so long as this provisionality is recognised then this is a reasonable but by no means exceptional book. That Turow is a novelist showns in the way characters are shown to be so much more than the two dimensional individuals some advocates (for and against) perceive them to be. For me what is most revealing is the different conceptions of justice that seems to be at play in the debate. Earlier last week I posted a quote from Timothy Gorringe that questioned the interesting coalescence of a Criminal Justice System that seeks "satisfaction" with a religious worldview that sees one's salvation in terms of the unjust capital punishment of its messiah in our place. In other words, to be just retribution must be done. I don't want to overplay this but I couldn't help but think of such comments on reading this book. What is amazing to me is that the "liberal" argument when faced with capital punishment is to advocate life without parole. For all its problems this is a world of difference to our (UK) CJS. Although there is in law scope for sentencing someone to die in incarceration (termed a "Whole Life Order") this is hardly ever applied - according to Hansard at the end of 2007 there were only 35 such cases nationally serving (note: issued over preceding years where the prisoner was still alive, not 35 issued in 2007). Rather, the life imprisonment system is premissed, on public safety rather then satisfaction. In orther words, Rehabilitation and Restoration over retribution. Therefore, even convicted murders (including what would in the US be first degree murders) while not given a release date are given hope of restoration if a parole board is satisfied they do not pose a public risk. As I say I have no doubt that the CJS in the UK is blame free, it has its own injustices and prejudices but it does I think raise the question what is prison for? (and, for now, I'll leave Foucault out of that question - the post has gone on too long already!).