Entries tagged with “Marc Bookman”
Oct 27, 2026
Pennsylvania Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Claims Alleging Washington County DA’s Misconduct in Seeking Death Penalty
District Attorney Jason Walsh of Washington County, Pennsylvania, sought the death penalty in 11 of 18 murder cases in his first four years in office (61%). He has filed capital charges more often than prosecutors in neighboring Allegheny County, which is over five times larger and has a higher murder rate, and more often than his own predecessor, who sought death just five times in nine years. Advocates argue that DA Walsh has abused his discretion and sought to further his political career by…
Issues
Jul 27, 2021
New Podcast: Capital Defense Lawyer Marc Bookman Discusses His New Book and the Systemic Defects that Have Sent the Death Penalty into ‘A Descending Spiral’
In the July 2021 episode of Discussions with DPIC, DPIC Executive Director Robert Dunham talks with Marc Bookman, the co-founder and Executive Director of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation (ACCR), about his critically acclaimed new book, A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays. In their discussion, Bookman and Dunham explore a wide range of systemic death-penalty problems addressed in the book, which was released by The New Press in May 2021. The topics…
Issues
Jul 07, 2021
NEW BOOK — Marc Bookman’s A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays
“The more people know about how the system of capital punishment really works, the less support they will have for that policy,” says Marc Bookman, the author of A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays. Bookman’s critically acclaimed collection of essays — described by Publishers Weekly as “a cogent and harrowing primer on what’s wrong with capital punishment” — channels his decades of capital litigation experience into 12 stories that exemplify the systemic failings of the…
Issues
Aug 31, 2010
Pennsylvania’s Costly Death Penalty Produces Nothing in Return
Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell has signed 113 execution warrants during his two terms in office, yet it appears likely that he will leave office in a few months without seeing any of them carried out. Since the state reinstated the death penalty in 1978, only three men have been executed, all of whom had waived their appeals. Inadequate funding for criminal defense may be one of the primary reasons for this de facto moratorium. Since 1978, state and federal courts have overturned 124…