Grave Injustice, a new book by Richard Stack, presents a crit­i­cal exam­i­na­tion of the death penal­ty through pro­files of indi­vid­u­als who were exe­cut­ed but may have been inno­cent. Their sto­ries are used to illus­trate flaws in the death penal­ty, includ­ing faulty eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, gov­ern­ment mis­con­duct, and inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion. In exam­in­ing these prob­lems, Stack writes that the pos­si­ble end of the death penal­ty ​“will not be based on its immorality…but on its poor track record… and its over­whelm­ing lack of cost-effec­tive­ness.” In the sec­ond half of the book, the author pro­files promi­nent indi­vid­u­als involved in this issue, includ­ing Sr. Helen Prejean and Martina Davis-Correia, the sis­ter of Troy Davis, who was exe­cut­ed in 2011. Reviewer Mary Kelly Tate, Director of the Institute for Actual Innocence, said, ​“Stack uses his repor­to­r­i­al skills to dis­till the com­plex sub­ject of the American death penal­ty into a digestible form, yet he nev­er cuts cor­ners with the human dimension.” 

Richard Stack is a pro­fes­sor in the School of Communication at American University. The book con­tains a fore­word by Benjamin Todd Jealous.

(R. Stack, ​“Grave Injustice: Unearthing Wrongful Executions,” Potomac Books, 2013; DPIC post­ed Sept. 26, 2013). See Innocence and Books.

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