In ​“Dead Wrong: Violence, Vengeance, and the Victims of Capital Punishment,” author Richard Stack uses cas­es to exam­ine three of the main caus­es of wrong­ful con­vic­tions — mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, offi­cial mis­con­duct, and incom­pe­tent coun­sel. Stack, a pro­fes­sor at American University’s School of Communication, based the book on three years of research con­duct­ed with the assis­tance of stu­dents enrolled in his pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion class­es. He said that he wrote the book to ​“put a human face” on the issue of wrong­ful con­vic­tions, a con­cern that unites both sup­port­ers and oppo­nents of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. ​“Even if you are an arch con­ser­v­a­tive, no one wants to see an inno­cent per­son exe­cut­ed,” he observed.

Three of the four sto­ries high­light­ed by Stack por­tray death row exon­er­a­tions, includ­ing that of Greg Wilhoit of Oklahoma, and Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee of Florida. Wilhoit’s case pro­vides the back­drop for Stack’s review of incom­pen­tent legal defense, while Pitts’ and Wilber’s cas­es illus­trate the errors that result from racial bias and sys­temic cor­rup­tion. In his review of mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny, Stack tells the sto­ry of Ronald Cotton, who spent 11 years in prison for a rape he did not com­mit.

In addi­tion to these four cas­es, Stack also recounts for­mer Illinois Governor George Ryan’s deci­sion to com­mute more than 160 death sen­tences due to his con­cerns about the death penal­ty sys­tem. The book final­ly gives the per­spec­tive of Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, a group of vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers who oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Stack calls this sec­tion ​“the excla­ma­tion mark” on his argu­ment for an end to the death penal­ty. He said, ​“These are the peo­ple politi­cians point to when they beat their chest and say we need the death penal­ty. But this group’s posi­tion is, ​‘We don’t want it, and if you’re main­tain­ing it for our ben­e­fit, you’re way off base’.”
(American (University) Weekly, April 24, 2007; Praeger Publishers, 2006) See Innocence and Books.

Citation Guide