Capital Defense: Inside the Lives of America's Death Penalty Lawyers [Hardcover]

The unsung heroes who defend the accused from the ultimate punishment

What motivates someone to make a career out of defending some of the worst suspected killers of our time? In Capital Defense, Jon B. Gould and Maya Pagni Barak give us a glimpse into the lives of lawyers who choose to work in the darkest corner of our criminal justice system: death penalty cases. Based on in-depth personal interviews with a cross-section of the nations top capital defense teams, the book explores the unusual few who voluntarily represent societys worst of the worst.

With a compassionate and careful eye, Gould and Barak chronicle the experiences of American lawyers, wholike soldiers or surgeonsoperate under the highest of stakes, where verdicts have the power to either take death off the table or put clients on the conveyor belt towards death. These lawyers are a rare breed in a field that is otherwise seen as dirty work and in a system that is overburdened, under-resourced, and overshadowed by social, cultural, and political pressures.

Examining the ugliest side of our criminal justice system, Capital Defense offers an up-close perspective on the capital litigation process and its impact on the people who participate in it.

Jon B. Gould (Author)
Jon B. Gouldis Dean of the School of Social Ecology and Professor of Criminology, Law and Society at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of four books, includingThe Innocence Commission: Preventing Wrongful Convictions and Restoring the Criminal Justice SystemandCapital Defense: Inside the Lives of Americas Death Penalty Attorneys.

Maya Pagni Barak (Author)
Maya Pagni Barakis Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and an affiliate of Womens and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is the author ofThe Slow Violence of Immigration Court: Procedural Justice on Trialand the co-al: