Table of Contents

Foreword Slouching Towards Abolition christopher Hitchens Introduction The Problem of Innocence David R. Dow 1. Part One: Reality of the Regime 1. How the Death Penalty Works David R. Dow 2. The Execution of Ivor Ray Stanley David R. Dow Part Two: Legacies of Lynching 3. Discrimination, Death and Denial: Race and the Death Penalty Stephen B. Bright 4. The Judge as Lynch Mob Ken Silverstein 5. From My Vantage-Disadvantage Point: Samuel B. Johnson in the New South Mark Dow Part Three: Inevitability and Innocence 6. Jousting with the Juggernaut Andrew Hammel 7. The Politics of Finality and the Execution of the Innocent: The Case of Gary Graham Dick Burr and Mandy Welch 8. Innocence Lost Bob Burtman 9. Chance and the Exoneration on Anthony Porter Shawn Armbrust Part Four: Inside the Walls 10. The Stopping Point: Interview with a Tie-Down Officer Stacy Abramson and David Isay 11. The Line Between Us and Them: Interview with a Warden Mark Dow 12. The Death Penalty as Disgrace: How One Man's Life and Death Reveal the Failings of Our Society Phyllis Crocker 13. An Eagle Soars: The Legacy of Mr. Smile Cecile C. Guin 14. In Memory of Anthony Lee Jones Sarah Ottinger 15. Representing Robert Sawyer sarah Ottinger Part Five: Towards Abolition 16. Killing the Death Penalty with Kindness Clive Stafford-Smith 17. Speaking Out Against the Execution of McVeigh Bud Welch 18. Reflections on Justice, Survival and Healing Renny Cushing

About the Author

David R. Dow is George Butler Research Professor of Law at the University of Houston. Since 1988, he has represented more than twenty-five death row inmates. Mark Dow is a Brooklyn based freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Progressive, The Miami Herald, The Boston Herald, and The Texas Observer.Christopher Hitchens is a best-selling author and a regular columnist for TheNation and Vanity Fair.

Reviews

"A thoughtful and compelling book written by people who struggle on the front lines with the machinery of death. It exposes the critical fault-lines: how race and poverty continue to matter; how innocent people can end up on death row; and how constitutional rights are routinely ignored by state and federal judges. Anyone who wants to know how the death penalty really works in America should read this book." -- Barry Scheck, Co-Author, ActualInnocence, and Co-Director, The Innocence Project
"This volume brings together lawyers, prison officials, social workers, journalists, and relatives of murder victims who have intimate knowledge of the machinery of the death penalty." -- Future Survey
"A compilation of testimonial essays brought together by death penalty lawyer David Dow and journalist Mark Dow, builds the case that the death penalty in any form is irrefutably and inexcusably not decnt. The editors bring together the voices of lawyers, prison personnel, and relatives of murder victims to bear witness to the reality of the death penalty in America." -- Margaret M. Chaplin, M.D., Psychiatric Services
"'Machinery of Death' maps familiar fault lines of capitl punishment: its condemnation by the international community; its randomness, striking innocents along with the guilty; its concentration on certain jurisdictions and not others; and its inherent and apparently ineradicable racism. What's new in this remarkable collection of essays is that each was written by a person who has seen the death machine first hand-- attorneys, prison officials, social workers, journalists, and relatives of murder victims-- and how that intimate experience altered their lives." -- The Angolite: ThePrison News Magazine