Acclaimed author John Grisham recently told The Kansas City Star that the death penalty should be “abolished forever” in the United States. “I think the system is so badly flawed that all executions should be stopped… . Let’s start with the basic concept of a fair trial. We are so far away from that in every state in this country,” said Grisham, an attorney whose views on capital punishment started to shift when he wrote “The Chamber,” a novel that deals with an execution. Grisham’s most recent best-selling book, “An Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town,” relates the wrongful conviction and freeing of death row inmate Ron Williamson of Oklahoma. Grisham said he believes innocent people remain on death row and that the margin of error in death penalty cases is simply too high. Grisham now raises funds for organizations that address wrongful convictions.
(The Kansas City Star, May 11, 2007). See Innocence and New Voices.
