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008			120106s2006 enka b 001 0ceng
010			_a2006299027
016	7		_a013386234 _2 Uk
024	3		_a9780470017500
042			_alccopycat
050	0	0	_aHV9468 _b.C44 2006
082	0	4	_a364.1523 CHE
100	1		_aCheever, Joan M.
245	1	0	_aBack from the dead _b: one woman's search for the men who walked off America's death row _c/ Joan M. Cheever
260			_aChichester, England ; _aHoboken, NJ _b: John Wiley _c, 2006.
300			_axi, 308 p. _b: ill. _c; 23 cm.
504			_aIncludes bibliographical references (p. 299-301) and index.
505	0		_aA date with death -- A "visit" from Walter -- Winners of America's 1972 death row lottery -- Class of '72: where are you? -- A dead man walking and talking -- From a cell of law books to a library of one -- Once a con. Always? -- The innocents: Pitts and Lee -- "Pops": the oldest member of the class -- A promise to keep -- A report card -- A promise to kill again -- A killer's 32-year Christmas shopping trip -- Finding Furman -- Finding forgiveness.
520			_aThis volume, a godsend for opponents of capital punishment, indicates that there is an even chance that inmates spared the death penalty can be rehabilitated. After the Supreme Court ruled in Furman v. Georgia (1972) that the death penalty was unconstitutional, 589 murderers and rapists were released from death row and into the general prison population. (New laws upheld the death penalty in 1976.) About half of these men were eventually released; Cheever, a legal affairs journalist who trained as a lawyer, found and interviewed 125 of them. Their personal stories feature both redemption and dismal failure but do show that rehabilitation is possible even among the worst cases. Two other trains of thought run through Cheever's text. First, she was determined to meet Furman, the man behind the 1972 legal decision, and her search for him deep into Mississippi reads like an epic tale. Finally, going back to her unsuccessful legal defense of a man named Walter Williams, whose 1997 execution for murder started her on her odyssey, Cheever hunts down the mother of the victim.
650		0	_aDeath row inmates _z--United States _v--Biography
650		4	_aMurderers _z-United States _v--Biography
650		4	_aEx-convicts _z--United States _v--Biography
942			_cMO
999			_c244442 _d244442