Ultimate Punishment

Scott Turow is the world-famous author of several bestselling novels about the law, from Presumed Innocent to Reversible Errors , as well as the wartime thriller Ordinary Heroes. He has also written an examination of the death penalty, Ultimate Punishment. He lives with his family outside Chicago, where he is a partner in the international law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal.

'Poignant and hugely powerful . . . a forensic and yet heartfelt examination of the cases for and against capital punishment' Daily TelegraphAs a pioneer of the modern legal thriller and a criminal lawyer, Scott Turow has been involved with the death penalty for more than a decade, including successfully representing two different men convicted in death-penalty prosecutions. In this vivid account, Turow describes his own experiences with capital punishment from his days as an impassioned young prosecutor to his service on the Illinois commission which investigated the administration of the death penalty and influenced Governor George Ryan's unprecedented commutation of the sentences of 164 death-row inmates on his last day in office.Along the way, he provides a brief history of America's ambivalent relationship with the ultimate punishment and illuminates the powerful stories behind the statistics, as he moves from the Governor's Mansion to Illinois' state-of-the art 'super-max' prison and the execution chamber.'Gripping and lucid' Sunday Times

A gripping, clear-sighted, necessary examination of the principles, personalities, and politics of a fundamental dilemma within American democracy with all the drama and intellectual substance of Turow's celebrated fiction.