Back From The Dead: One woman’s search for the men who walked off America’s death row is the sto­ry of 589 for­mer death row inmates who, through a lot­tery of fate, were giv­en a sec­ond chance at life in 1972 when the death penal­ty was abol­ished. Joan Cheever, a for­mer edi­tor of the National Law Journal, who also rep­re­sent­ed a death row inmate in Texas, trav­eled the coun­try inter­view­ing inmates who had been con­demned to death but whose sen­tences were reduced to life when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the death penal­ty in Furman v. Georgia in 1972.

In addi­tion to telling the sto­ries of these inmates, and offer­ing Cheever’s own reflec­tions in doing this research, the book con­tains valu­able sta­tis­tics on the 322 of 589 con­demned inmates who were even­tu­al­ly released on parole. (Today, most cap­i­tal offend­ers who are not giv­en the death penal­ty are sen­tenced to life with­out parole.)
(John Wiley & Sons 2006). See Books and Life Without Parole. See also the Web site Back from the Dead.

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