A Life and Death Decision
A Jury Weighs the Death Penalty
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A gripping exploration of a jury's members' perspectives on the most wrenching decision: the death sentence
With a life in the balance, a jury convicts a man of murder and now has to decide whether he should be put to death. Twelve people now face a momentous choice.
Bringing drama to life, A Life and Death Decision gives unique insight into how a jury deliberates. We feel the passions, anger, and despair as the jurors grapple with legal, moral, and personal dilemmas. The jurors' voices are compelling. From the idealist to the "holdout," the individual stories—of how and why they voted for life or death—drive the narrative. The reader is right there siding with one or another juror in this riveting read.
From movies to novels to television, juries fascinate. Focusing on a single case, Sundby sheds light on broader issues, including the roles of race, class, and gender in the justice system. With death penalty cases consistently in the news, this is an important window on how real jurors deliberate about a pressing national issue.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Although law professor Sundby casts this book as an impartial look at capital jury deliberations, it would be difficult to walk away from it without a few lingering doubts about the efficacy of the current system of death penalty sentencing. Drawing on information from the Capital Jury Project, a nationwide study that interviewed more than 1,000 capital jurors, as well as on data from studies of group decision-making, this work offers a gripping and important look behind the jury room doors. Those who oppose the death penalty will no doubt come across much here to bolster their views. And those who support it will find themselves with plenty of food for thought as Sundby surveys crucial issues such as jury instructions, jury room setup and voir dire procedures. Regardless of where one stands in the debate, however, Sundby uses the personal stories of the jurors so compellingly that he brings the drama of the jury room to vivid life.