I read this book because I received a free copy when I worked at the same firm as Mr. Turow. It's not as dry as I thought it would have been.

Scott Turow attempts to do the impossible: write his views albeit pros & cons of capital punishment. And decide which is right, moral and pleasing in following the law as written.

Today’s system is so convoluted, its difficult to walk the straight line and say no capital punishment. Prisons are huge financial drain. Folks running prisons under immense strain. There are way too many prisoners as it is. Then walk the other direction and say yes. What if the wrong person is convicted & is put to death?

This book is out dated.

Today (2021) there’s a lot more to conviction: better DNA kits, video recordings, and smarter detectives. I am not a lawyer. I haven’t experienced a murder. I can tell you that every human is destined to die anyway. If a person has clearly committed a horrific crime, to me, the death penalty is better than being locked up forever behind bars. Being locked in cages, that to me, is barbaric and cruel to both the guarded and guardee.

There has to be a better plan. Perhaps the Egyptians had it right, using convicts for forced manpower? Better to use the convict to build, and leave a good legacy behind. Yes?

Turow writes thoughtful compelling arguments in this thin book, its well worth the time to peak inside his head. Meet his cohorts, people he interacted with and come out the other side with well researched, educated thought process.

I vote semi-yes for capital punishment as long as it truly unequivocally the right answer for the heinous crime committed by the actual perpetrator(s). I would prefer that perpetrators worked instead, ie, road crew, farming, etc., anything that needs to help America do better for its law abiding citizens.

Thanks for reading!

Very interesting book

Ultimate Punishment, A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty, by Scott Turow. (pp 164) Published 2003. As the title suggests, this book is about the author’s ruminations about the death penalty, specifically about the state laws, law enforcement actions, and judicial practices in the state of Illinois. The framework is his participation on a Governor-appointed commission investigating the death penalty arising from a belief that there were flaws in all levels of the Illinois system that imposed death penalties on a small fraction of convicted criminals. Not being a reader of the author’s bestselling novels about the law, my only exposure to Turow the lawyer was his book One L., a book about the first year of law school which I read months before entering law school. To bring the factual and procedural issues addressed in the book to life, Turow weaved into them several death penalty cases on which he worked, including some to exonerate prisoners whose convictions were overturned, either because of their innocence and/or gross breeches of proper procedures that were found to result in inequitable application of the law. Because of the specifics of Illinois laws, the findings and recommendations of the Commission (the preamble of which is included in the text) are specific to that state, but the broader principles of equality under the law; sometimes capricious application of laws; police and prosecutorial misconduct; poor judicial oversight,; morality; the issues of retribution, redemption, and deterrence; fundamental problems with eye witness testimony; unreliable or uncorroborated testimony; emotion-driven decision-making; and other consequential factors are applicable everywhere. This is a compact, well-thought out consideration of these issues, presented in ways that offer the viewpoints of both pro- and anti- death penalty advocates. Turow states that the seminal question is “whether a system of justice can be constructed that reaches only the rare, right cases, without also occasionally condemning the innocent or the undeserving.” Great book for those interested in the subject matter.

This book forced me to challenge all preconceptions I had about the death penalty and ask myself if I could pull the lever. I could not.

I can't say enough about how much I gained from reading this book. In general, I do not support the death penalty. Yet, there are those cases where it seems like life in prison just doesn't do justice when a crime is particularly horrific and where there is no doubt about who committed the crime. An example for me would be James Holmes, the man who killed 12 and injured 50 in an Aurora, Colorado theater shooting in 2012.

Reading this book, written by a bestselling author who also happens to work in the criminal justice system--and who is similarly torn about the death penalty--reminds me of the enormity of this topic and that even those with a lot of experience have mixed feelings. I'm not the only one. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in the death penalty process or is struggling to decide how they really feel about it.

This is my second time reading this book (audibly this time). As someone well immersed in the legal field now, more of the content stuck with me. Growing up, I was against the death penalty, but still understood the logic of its supporters and wavered at times. Turow’s early self reflection as a death penalty agnostic must resonate with a lot of readers. That’s why this book is so good. He also grappled with the complexities of the human experience and figured out his position based on evidence overtime. If only everyone did this level of intellectual reflection and research.

Today, I am anti-death penalty like my school papers suggest. However, I now have stronger reasoning and am more confident about explaining it to others. I am wondering if Turow still agrees with much of what he wrote in this early 2000s book.

Below are my favorite quotes from the book:
(semi-spoiler)

“There will always be cases that cry out to me for ultimate punishment. That is not the true issue. The pivotal question instead is whether a system of justice can be constructed that reaches only the rare right cases without also occasionally condemning the innocent or the undeserving.”

“Jurors are unwilling to take the chance to put a monster into our midst and thus will not always require proof beyond reasonable doubt.”

“The fact that capital cases are uniquely prone to error causes call for safeguards we have yet to institutionalize or even fully conceive of… or for renewed reflection over whether to proceed with capital punishment at all.”

“I revere the enterprise of the law, but it does not function flawlessly. It neither finds the truth nor dispenses judgement with the reliability it is obliged to claim. The laws sharp edged rules never cut through the murk of moral ambiguity nor do they fully comprehend or address the complexities of human motivation and intention.”

“Sentencing should look solely to the character of the defendant and his crime, not to the tears of the bereaved”

Concise discussion of the death penalty.

I am on the thin book rampage, a revolution against thick books. I have these thin books. Why shouldn’t I read them? This particular is not only thin (164 pages) but is a spin off from my last book that was also about the death penalty, A Saint on Death Row. That one left me feeling a little flat so I am hoping Scott Turow’s Ultimate Punishment will perk me up.

When I start a new book I very often read several GR reviews just to get a lay of the land. And sometimes I need help to get it. In reading reviews for this book, some people think that Turow did what few succeed at, that is giving a balanced and thoughtful assessment of the pros and cons of capital punishment. All I can say is, thank goodness he ultimately came down on the correct side of the issue: capital punishment should be abolished in the U.S. Now I can relax and read the book without fear that one of my long term beliefs, opposition to capital punishment, is going to suffer a setback. However, some points of view in the book helped me understand why some support the death penalty.

As many of the other GR reviews suggest, this book is well thought out and well written. This is the non-fiction side of Scott Terow. He certainly comes across as thorough and incisive. He fits a lot of thinking into a short book. Some of his inside stories of the workings (and non-workings) of the legal system made me question the ethics of this field. But, sadly, that didn’t surprise me. He calmly observes that corruption is part of the political landscape in his state of Illinois.

This is a summary of what happened in Illinois:

Jan 31, 2000 ... CHICAGO -- Governor George H. Ryan today declared a moratorium on
executions of any more Illinois Death Row inmates.
On May 4th, 2000 Illinois Governor George Ryan created the Commission to study Illinois' Capital Punishment law.
Jan 12, 2003 ... Condemning the capital punishment system as fundamentally flawed and unfair,
Gov. George Ryan commuted all Illinois death sentences .
Mar 9, 2011 ... George Ryan and makes Illinois the 16th state to end the death penalty.

There are 38 pages of detailed Notes at the end of the book that are offered by the author with this caveat:

This book is a personal reflection, informed more by experience than study, and, as such, is not to be mistaken for a work of scholarship. The following notes are offered solely for the curious, to substantiate the many assertions of fact in the text.

When this book was published in 2003, Scott Turow reported that a majority of people in the U.S. supported the death penalty. Now it is ten years later.

May 2, 2013 ... WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Maryland became the 18th U.S. state to abolish the death penalty on Thursday when Governor Martin O'Malley signed a bill outlawing capital punishment in the state.
Five other states - Connecticut, Illinois, New Mexico, New York and New Jersey - have repealed capital punishment since 2007, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The number of U.S. executions has fallen from a peak of 98 in 1999 to 43 each in 2011 and 2012, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The pace has slowed even more in 2013, with 10 so far this year.
Texas has by far the highest number of executions since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, at 496, according to the center. It is trailed by Virginia at 110.
Dieter said the death penalty had fallen out of favor largely because lawmakers and the public more and more feared that innocent people could be executed. He noted that lengthy legal appeals made it an expensive proposition.
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/0...

Goodreads was founded in December 2006. Ultimate Punishment was published in 2003. As a result there are only 280 GR ratings suggesting that by 2007 this book had lost whatever immediate post publication popularity it had. It has not been a book with an extended life. Two-thirds of the GR raters gave it four or five stars.  Reversible Errors , a fiction book by Turow about the death penalty, was also published in 2003. It has nearly 2100 GR ratings. It is interesting that Turow was working on this novel while he was serving on the Illinois Governor’s Commission on the death penalty. Turow withheld publication of Reversible Errors because the proceedings of the Commission were not public until its final recommendations were made in 2002. The Commission proceedings and the writing of the book overlapped and Turow “was convinced that the two enterprises did not intersect.” He later acknowledged “I think I was settling some insights that would contribute to my ultimate conclusions” on the Commission. How could he say with a straight face that the book and the Commission did not intersect? I guess maybe it turns out that he is just a crafty lawyer. He can’t help it!

Can you have a spoiler in a non-fiction book? Turow says, “Eventually, I expect the Court to conclude the capital punishment and the promise of the process of law are incompatible.” He was part of the slim majority on the Commission, when informally polled, thought that the death penalty should be abolished In Illinois.

I like Scott Turow even if he is a lawyer. He wrote a good book and I am going to give it four stars. It is ten years old and therefore somewhat dated but the main debate points still apply and Turow tried to balance the scales of justice, something you don’t see that often on controversial topics. If you agree with Turow that the death penalty should be abolished, you should know that more people are thinking that too. You might enjoy reading this book.

I've always enjoyed Turow's legal thrillers, so seeing him put his formidable intelligence to the question of the death penalty was enjoyable as well. I was already inclined to agree with his opinion (the death penalty is wrong) but I was appreciated the exploration of different concerns. But would this book change the mind of a death penalty supporter? I'm not so sure.

I would have given this book five stars, but there was a chapter that prattled on about one of his other books. It wasn't pertinent to the point of his book, and generally seemed to be a shameless plug. The rest of the book was a fair look at the death penalty issue, with valuable insight and thorough research.

Kind of interesting how it is decided who gets life in prison & who gets a death sentence. This was research done for a report & recommendation by over 20 lawyers & others for the state of Illinois when their death penalty was put on hold.