7.6 /10 1 Votes7.6
Language English Pages 164 (paperback) Originally published 2003 Page count 164 (paperback) Publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 3.8/5 Goodreads Publication date 2003 OCLC 52030296 Country United States of America | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback) ISBN 0-374-12873-1 (paperback) Similar Scott Turow books, Capital punishment books, Autobiographies | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty or simply Ultimate Punishment is a series of autobiographical reflections regarding the death penalty. It is written by Scott Turow and marks his return to non-fiction for the first time since One L in 1977.
Turow bases his opinions on his experiences as a prosecutor and, in his post-prosecutorial years, working on behalf of death-row inmates, as well as his two years on Illinois's Commission on Capital Punishment, charged by the former Gov. George Ryan.
Turow presents both sides of the death penalty debate and seems himself to flip sides depending on the argument.
Turow's reflections include:
He also visits a maximum security prison and meets multiple-murderer Henry Brisbon, who, Turow says, "most closely resembles... Hannibal Lecter".
Reception
Ultimate Punishment received the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights 2004 Book award given annually to a novelist who "most faithfully and forcefully reflects Robert Kennedy's purposes - his concern for the poor and the powerless, his struggle for honest and even-handed justice, his conviction that a decent society must assure all young people a fair chance, and his faith that a free democracy can act to remedy disparities of power and opportunity."