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The Autobiography of an Execution
by
David R. Dow
Near the beginning of
The Autobiography of an Execution
, David Dow lays his cards on the table. "People think that because I am against the death penalty and don't think people should be executed, that I forgive those people for what they did. Well, it isn't my place to forgive people, and if it were, I probably wouldn't. I'm a judgmental and not very forgiving guy. Just a
...more
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Community Reviews
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This is a brilliant memoir/creative nonfiction that has intensified my opposition to the death penalty. The author runs a legal aid clinic that handles death row inmates' appeals in Texas, a state notorious for its large number of executions. I knew the system was seriously flawed, but I didn't realize it was THIS bad. I was frankly horrified by what I read.
There are several cases in this story, but the central case involves a man convicted of murdering his wife and children, who is facing execu ...more
There are several cases in this story, but the central case involves a man convicted of murdering his wife and children, who is facing execu ...more
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I grew up in Texas and spent the majority of my adulthood there. Knowing this you might think I am for the death penalty and you would be wrong. The author is a death penalty attorney and law professor. He writes of many cases and references them and his family throughout the book. The main story of "Quaker" brought tears to my eyes. I have often wondered how "Christians" can play the part of God and put a person to death instead of just jailing them for life. I realize they refer to "an eye for
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The first thought in reading
The Autobiography of an Execution
was that David Dow's life reminded me an awful lot of that of Mitch McDeere from
The Firm
. Not the mafia parts; just the long hours, beautiful wife, running and drinking and eating parts. I'm not sure if this was subconscious (I'm betting Dow has read Grisham), or if it just means that this is the life of a busy, driven Southern lawyer.
Of course, it shouldn't go without saying that Dow's book is much, much better than Grisham's. I am ...more
Of course, it shouldn't go without saying that Dow's book is much, much better than Grisham's. I am ...more
The author, a death-penalty defense lawyer in Texas, discusses some of his cases (with identifying details removed) and all their nail-biting, guilt-inducing, soul-crushing drama and tragedy. He mentions several cases as once, but most of the book centers on the case of a man he calls Quaker, who got a sickeningly unfair deal at his first trial and who seems innocent based on the evidence Dow has. Undeniably driven to do this work, and justifiably angry at what he perceives as uncaring, blatantl
...more
If you're for the death penalty, I'm not convinced that reading books by lawyers such as David Dow seeking to save death-row inmates is really going to make any difference to what you think. So, what then, is the purpose of Dow's book, assuming he is preaching to an army of the converted...those who don't believe in the death penalty?
David Dow is an academic and a lead lawyer at Texas's non-profit anti-death penalty litigation center. The greatest strength of Dow's book is his frankness. Dow arg ...more
David Dow is an academic and a lead lawyer at Texas's non-profit anti-death penalty litigation center. The greatest strength of Dow's book is his frankness. Dow arg ...more
David Dow's memoir is about some of the death-row inmates whom he's represented as their attorney, and all the injustices and challenges that exist where he practices (Texas). He use to support the death penalty but opposes it now...and after reading the book it's easy to see why.
I can see some people being turned off by the way the book is written: he skips back and forth between his interactions with his family (wife, son, and a dog) and his clients. However, it didn't bother me at all; in fa ...more
I can see some people being turned off by the way the book is written: he skips back and forth between his interactions with his family (wife, son, and a dog) and his clients. However, it didn't bother me at all; in fa ...more
Wow. This book should be required reading to be a human. So very deserving of the Barnes and Noble Discover Award! The writing was so gorgeous I was able to overlook the author's aversion to quotation marks -- lots of, "I said, thank you very much. He said, you're welcome. I said, let's go get some ice cream." Not sure what the reasoning was behind this stylistic choice, but hey, if I'm going to think William Faulkner is the great genius of the universe, I can't say I don't like authors who brea
...more
It was okay. The legal parts were really good, but I was not digging all the detours into the family. I wanted to read a book about the legalities of capital punishment, not a father feeling guilty for not buying his kid a snowcone.
Also, I couldn't find any other reviewer here mention this, but my BS meter went off a few times. Many of the interactions he recounts with prisoners didn't ring true to me, and he seemed a little self-aggrandizing.
Also, I couldn't find any other reviewer here mention this, but my BS meter went off a few times. Many of the interactions he recounts with prisoners didn't ring true to me, and he seemed a little self-aggrandizing.
David Dow represented hundreds of death row inmates. The vast majority were guily. Most were executerd. A few were mentally retarded. Almost all had horrendous upbringings and were severly damaged human beings. Some he disliked intensely. Some he regarded as just plain evil. And at least a few were innocent.
Dow's book sketches the reality of the death penalty in America and tells his own story -- that of a lawyer trying to stop his clients from being put to death and almost always losing. His w ...more
Dow's book sketches the reality of the death penalty in America and tells his own story -- that of a lawyer trying to stop his clients from being put to death and almost always losing. His w ...more
Nov 08, 2011
Kate
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
memoirs
,
biography
,
legalese
,
american-studies
,
social-justice
,
new-in-2010
,
the-stacks
This book is several things: an intimate and humane argument against the injustice of capital punishment, a critique of other anti-capital punishment literature, and, as Louisa Thomas, writing in
The New York Times
described Mary Clearman Blew's
This is Not the Ivy League
: "a kind of anti-memoir — an incredulous account, a catalog of confusion."
David R. Dow has been representing death row inmates for 20 odd years or so. Once a proponent of the death penalty, he got started in the business as ...more
David R. Dow has been representing death row inmates for 20 odd years or so. Once a proponent of the death penalty, he got started in the business as ...more
There are many reasons I could give for why you should read a book about the death penalty: cold, hard, fact-based reasons, like the chilling statistic that to date 17 people who have been executed in this country have since been exonerated by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project (and that even one is too many). But really, my own opinions on the issue are irrelevant, and Dow's searing memoir can be approached equally well as a death penalty proponent, opponent, or as someone who has
...more
David Dow took a subject that many of us in the US like to ignore, the death penalty, and personalized it in a nearly perfect way--not just by telling the true stories of the death row inmates he represents, but also by weaving it together with his own life and family.
We don't like to be reminded that we, as a country, sentence people to death. The author admits that the majority of his clients are guilty. They are. He doesn't tiptoe around the fact that his job is to keep them alive, even if i ...more
We don't like to be reminded that we, as a country, sentence people to death. The author admits that the majority of his clients are guilty. They are. He doesn't tiptoe around the fact that his job is to keep them alive, even if i ...more
Some critiques of this book are of David Dow's purported ego. One has to have a strong ego to do the work he does and I am grateful for it. Some readers seem to miss the reasons names and particular details were altered, despite allegiance to the story itself. (Author's note, "...I have told these stories in a way that is faithful to the truth as well as to the individuals they feature.") In this it is most believable.
Yes, it's a story about how this lawyer--principles, passion and all--balance ...more
Yes, it's a story about how this lawyer--principles, passion and all--balance ...more
2.5 stars. I picked this book out one, because I wanted to read an opposing viewpoint for capital punishment and two, I'm always curious about criminal defense attorneys--how and why theytry to protect and serve those who commit the most heinous crimes. This book disappointed on both expectations. The author explained those away in a couple paragraphs and chose to focus on the lives and stories of the death row inmates he has represented, which surprisingly diluted what I thought the author was
...more
This book is a screed—but it’s a screed that everyone with any interest in understanding how the American legal system works should read. The author has a very interesting perspective, having worked for Texas death-row inmates, and he is, I would say, enraged at how the legal system has treated them. The book is written somewhat unconventionally—not separated into chapters, really, more just pauses, and with a rather plaintive writing style—but the content is so important, and engrossing, that b
...more
Dow’s new book is made up of part philosophy, part law school 101, part case history, part memoir and part detective story. The most compelling part of these is the detective story, (where he tries to figure out if one of his clients is actually innocent) the worst part was his telling us too much about his precocious 6 –year old son (and while I understand that he wants to show us his personal life to give the rest of the story context, this was too much).
Dow tells us that he used to believe in ...more
Dow tells us that he used to believe in ...more
Whatever your feelings toward the death penalty, this is a fascinating read. It’s nonfiction, the story of Dow’s dealings as a death penalty lawyer who tries to keep people from being executed on death row — which does not mean he necessarily proves their innocence or downgrades their sentence. If someone dies from pneumonia instead, he considers it a “victory.” If he can push their sentence back a few days, a victory.
A few things I found interesting about this book:
It largely focuses on Dow an ...more
A few things I found interesting about this book:
It largely focuses on Dow an ...more
A comfortable read that fits in naturally with my liberal inclinations. Dow is a lawyer who represents death row clients in Texas and lets his frustrations show. His argument is that the death penalty is wrong regardless of circumstances even though he admits to the nature of most of the people he represents. The book is not preachy and doesn’t get into the frivolous economics of the argument. It instead relies on his nature as a human being and inclinations of right and wrong to draw that concl
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towards the end of david dow's 'the autobiography of an execution', he writes:
"The cases I have written about are not unusual. My other cases, every death-penalty lawyer's cases, are just like them. What's missing is the proof that what you have just finished reading is mundane. The day after Henry Quaker got put to death, my colleagues and I went back to the office and did it all over again, and all the same things happened."
and this is maddening. this should be enough to convince any rational ...more
"The cases I have written about are not unusual. My other cases, every death-penalty lawyer's cases, are just like them. What's missing is the proof that what you have just finished reading is mundane. The day after Henry Quaker got put to death, my colleagues and I went back to the office and did it all over again, and all the same things happened."
and this is maddening. this should be enough to convince any rational ...more
There's good news and a little bit of bad news: the good news is that this book blew me away. The writing is fluid, the story is gripping, and I could hardly put it down. The bad news is that it left a bad taste in my mouth because of the "mostly non-fiction" aspect. In an author's note at the beginning, Dow explains that in order to protect attorney-client confidentiality, he's changed and composited various facts and characters, but he claims the substance of the book is all true. The trouble
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A harrowing read which exposes the barbarism and capriciousness of the supposed guardians of the rule of law. Dow pulls no punches, pointing out that our societal indifference to the death penalty is manifested throughout the system - from the legislatures that egg on the machinery of death to the judges that can't get elected or appointed if they seek to tamper the primal bloodlust. He reminds us that there are still good people doing the right things - innocents on death row, changed inmates w
...more
My 3 star rating reflects my taste more than the quality of the book. Ultimately I think I just read the wrong book by Dow. I believe his non fiction work "Executed on a technicality" would be more to my liking than this memoir and plan to read it sometime soon. I loved the parts of the book about what his team of lawyers do to keep death row inmates from being executed. He provides a fascinating look into the numerous appeals and wild last ditch efforts that they try for these inmates who are m
...more
This book provided an interesting inside view of the litigation process from the perspective of a death penalty lawyer. He artfully shows all sides of an argument while still showing a person in conflict over what his job entails, and it's losing record for 'saving' those on death row. I good read, regardless of which side of this issue you fall on.
No matter what one's stance is on capital punishment, this well-written personal log is an interesting, if not moving, account of what it's like to be a defense lawyer for prisoners on death row awaiting execution, what goes into the process of execution, and what sort of toll it takes on one's psyche. It's definitely a thoughtful and worthwhile read.
There is some information included about how the author wrote about real cases and events without betraying any confidence. I don't quite see how that is possible, but the book is fascinating reading. This is a Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction experience.
For the record: I oppose the death penalty.
For the record: I oppose the death penalty.
It took me a LOT longer to read this book than it should have, but it was well worth it. It was a well-written book, that tugged the reader both emotionally and rationally. Wherever you stand on the death penalty, you should read this book.
The Autobiography of an Execution is a compelling look at death penalty cases from the perspective of a death penalty lawyer. One of the things that makes this book unique is that Dow doesn't focus on cases of the wrongly executed, which would easily gain more sympathy from readers. Instead we're shown an array of condemned men, from the inexcusably guilty to the mentally incompetent killer to the one who was, in all likelihood, innocent.
Most people unfamiliar with the inner workings of our jus ...more
Most people unfamiliar with the inner workings of our jus ...more
I could not put this down once I started. This book shows why even though I'm a lawyer, I generally hate lawyers, judges, prosecutors and cops. The system is not about justice or truth, it's about money and politics.
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“Socrates had it backward. He thought the unexamined life is not worth living. I think no one's life holds up to examination. The more time you spend thinking the more you notice that everyone else is doing something better or more important than you.”
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“Lessons in life are context specific. Contexts are never the same. If there are no lessons you can use does that mean there are actually no lessons”
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