Wilbert Rideau, a former death row inmate in Louisiana who has since been released from prison, recently published his memoir, In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance. Rideau was sentenced to death at the age of 19 for killing a woman in panic during a botched robbery attempt. While on death row, he underwent a transformation and, after his sentence was commuted to life, he became the editor of The Angolite, an award-winning prison magazine that exposed abuses in the correctional system by guards and inmates at Angola Prison. Several wardens vouched for Rideau's rehabilitation, and decades later, his case was reopened. In 2005, he was found guilty of manslaughter and released with time served. He now resides in Baton Rouge with his wife. He was recently interviewed in Mother Jones Magazine. When asked why it took so long to be released despite support from wardens and parole officers, Rideau said it was, "Because they made me a political football. And whenever that happens, it's difficult for any prisoner to get out … the only reason I got the help I got was because I was high-profile and won awards. Otherwise, I would have been just like a lot of the other guys: alone, trying to deal with the system."
A new book by Andrew Hammel offers insights into the different perspectives on the death penalty in America and Europe. "Ending the Death Penalty: The European Experience in Global Perspective" examines three countries that do not have the death penalty (Germany, France and the United Kingdom), and analyzes how capital punishment was ended in those countries. Hammel ultimately believes that the governmental structure, culture, and political traditions in the U.S. make the European model of abolition unlikey to succeed here, though he also states that "important piecemeal victories" in limiting capital punishment are likely to continue in the U.S. Andrew Hammel is Assistant Professor for American Law at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany. He has worked as a lawyer with the Texas Defender Service, where he represented death row inmates in U.S. state and federal courts.
A new book written by Jim and Nancy Petro offers a comprehensive analysis of how miscarriages of justice result in wrongful convictions. Jim Petro, a former Republican Attorney General of Ohio, has observed the justice system from all sides and was appalled by the frequent mistakes in the criminal justice system. As attorney general, he advocated along with the Innocence Project to help free a man wrongfully convicted of murder and rape. In “False Justice,” the Petros expose a series of myths and misconceptions about the American justice system, such as, Only the guilty confess; and Wrongful conviction is the result of innocent human error. These misconceptions, they argued, not only prevent juries from carefully weighing evidence but also prevent local judges and prosecution teams from examining cases in an unbiased fashion. "False Justice" will be released in October.
Amnesty International recently released its annual report on international abuses and progress in the field of human rights: "The State of the World's Human Rights." The report covers January to December 2009 and addresses human rights issues in every country around the world. The report also highlights countries' involvement in international and regional human rights treaties. Among the nations in the Americas, the United States had the most active death penalty practices with over 100 new death sentences and 52 executions. Although death sentences were handed down in the Bahamas, Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago, no executions were carried out. The majority of North American and South American countries are abolitionist in law or in practice.
The Last Gasp: The Rise and Fall of the American Gas Chamber details the history and development of the gas chamber as a method of execution in the United States. Author Scott Christianson explores connections between the gas chamber and the eugenics movement, as well as new evidence about Hitler’s adoption of gas chamber technology developed in the United States. Charles Lanier, Director of the Capital Punishment Research Initiative, said, "Scott Christianson has used his extensive experience as an investigative reporter, criminal justice official, historian, and scholar to probe one of the darkest and most neglected regions of American death penalty history—the story of the gas chamber. This book opens new doors and charts new territory in its gripping historical tale documenting the development and use of lethal gas as a method of execution in the United States."
Last Words of the Executed by Robert K. Elder is a compilation of the final statements of death row inmates shortly before their execution. The book, with a foreword by Studs Terkel, also describes the crime and some of the social setting of each case presented. According to a review in The Economist, "The last words are remarkable for their remorse, humour, hatred, resignation, fear and bravado…. America's diverse heritage is stamped even onto its killers' final moments." Sister Helen Prejean wrote, "This is a dangerous book. Who knows how we will emerge from the encounter?" Robert Elder has written for the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Salon and many other publications. He currently teaches journalism at Northwestern University.
"Condemned" is a compilation of the correspondence between Irish author Sean O' Riain and an inmate on death row in the United States, known as "Ray" in the book. Riain became involved in writing letters to a death row inmate through the Comunita di Sant'Egidio, an organization in Rome that partners death row inmates with penfriends around the world. "Ray" is on death row for killing a man–-a crime he committed at a young age, and now freely admits and deeply regrets. Among the many glimpses of life on death row explored in this book is "Ray"'s rehabilition. He writes, "I want to prove to the nay-sayer that I can be a productive citizen out in the world, I've grown up a lot since I came here and I'd like to make the ones I've disappointed throughout my lifetime proud of what I've become now."