Dead Wrong
Subtitle: A Death Row Lawyer Speaks Out Against Capital Punishment
Edition: New Ed edition
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: June 1999
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 393
ISBN-13: 9780299153441
Subjects: Human rights; International humanitarian law; Law; Legal Reference / Law Profession; Reference; USA; Criminal Law - General; Capital punishment; United States
Description: "After fourteen years as a death row lawyer in Florida, Michael Mello has seen enough. Dead Wrong is a candid and compelling account of his decision to withdraw from "the machinery of death"--The American capital punishment system."--BOOK JACKET. "Telling stories of cases he worked on - including those of confessed serial killer Ted Bundy and of "Crazy Joe" Spaziano, wrongly convicted but still on death row after twenty years - Mello provides an inside view of death row lawyering as no one has done before. He describes how he and others fought to make the post-conviction system work, ensuring inmates the right to a fair appeal. Alternately impassioned, angry, and haunted by the victims, crimes, and criminals, Mello draws us into the legal maze of appeals, death warrants, stays of execution, and executions."--BOOK JACKET. "Though Mello is unflinching in his recognition of the brutal realities of capital crimes, his book is a powerful indictment of the death penalty enterprise in America. He is appalled at the lack of vigilance in a system that routinely punishes guilty and innocent alike. And, practicing in Florida, he saw the state's death penalty cost to taxpayers rise to an estimated average $3.2 million per execution - six times the average cost of life imprisonment."--Jacket.