A supplement for courses focusing on the death penalty or ethical issues.

This topical anthology features a collection of 25 short, non-technical articles—written in an accessible journalistic style—that focus on important issues in the practice of the death penalty today.

• Several timely articles on the death penalty which include—“Women on the Row”, “Tossing in the Towel”, “Killing the Lawyers”, and “Death Row Donors”, all written by Lane Nelson, an inmate of Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana.

  • Introduces students to real life issues facing death row inmates. Ex.___

• Written in a journalistic style that explores important issues from different perspectives.

  • Provides students with serious content upon which to base their own opinions. Ex.___

 1. Why Death Is Different: Capital Punishment in the Legal System, Burk Foster.


 2. How the Death Penalty Really Works: Selecting Death Penalty Offenders in America, Burk Foster.


 3. Who Is the Meanest of Them All, Burk Foster and Craig J. Forsyth.


 4. Is There a Doctor in the Chamber?, Lane Nelson.


 5. Women on the Row, Lane Nelson.


 6. Killing Kids, Lane Nelson.


 7. Enlarging the Circle, Lane Nelson.


 8. Tossing in the Towel, Lane Nelson.


 9. Death Row Donors, Lane Nelson.


10. Killing the Lawyers, Lane Nelson.


11. The Great Writ—Re: The Condemned, Lane Nelson.


12. A Practice in Search of an Ethic: The Death Penalty in the Contemporary South, Burk Foster.


13. An Unholy Tradition, Watt Espy.


14. The Executed Warden, Lane Nelson.


15. “Goodbye, Toni Jo”: The Electrocution of Annie Beatrice Henry, Burk Foster.


16. Struck by Lightning: Electrocutions for Rape in Louisiana in the 1940s and 1950s, Burk Foster.


17. Unbalanced Justice, Lane Nelson.


18. Tragedy, Lane Nelson.


19. Sensory Anguish, Les Martin.


20. Truce, Lawson Strickland.


21. A Killer Year, Lane Nelson.


22. Far-Off Places, Lane Nelson.


23. One Man's View, James C. McCloskey.


24. A Lawyer's Opinion: Kind and Usual Punishment, David Marcantel.


25. Any Last Words?, Lane Nelson and Burk Foster.

"...a very complete work...very well written. It has changed my personal belief about the death penalty."—James E Newman/Rio Hondo Community College

"...it makes a reader really think more deeply about a controversial topic in our society. This work has a style of writing that very quickly captures the attention of the reader and holds it."—William E. Kelly/Auburn University

"The fact that one of the authors—Lane Nelson—is a former death row inmate gives the text a credibility and perspective that is unique in sociology and criminal justice...offer the facts and perspectives from the inside in an easily accessible manner"—Charles Crawford/Western Michigan University

Death Watch is a topical, up-to-date collection of death penalty journalism and personal essays. Drawing on the experiences and perspectives of Lane Nelson, a former death row inmate and current staff writer for "The Angolite," Louisiana's award winning prison news magazine, and Burk Foster, a University of Louisiana-Lafayette criminal justice professor and jail and prison expert witness, Death Watch looks at the death penalty as a legal process, a social reality, and a fundamental issue of public policy.

The topics covered in this volume include:

• how capital cases are different in the legal process
• how death penalty offenders are selected
• the selective application of the death penalty to women and juveniles
• problems in providing competent counsel to death penalty defendants
• medical issues related to organ donation and physician participation in executions
• the execution of blacks for rape in the South
• how the death penalty was imposed and carried out in the past
• reflections on death row life by inmates under death sentence
• the last words of men and women before execution
• the dilemma of defending the innocent on death row
• feature articles on two Louisiana inmates, Antonio James and John A. Brown, Jr., executed in 1996 and 1997
• the ethics of the death penalty today

View a Sample Chapter PDF:

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Pearson Higher Education offers special pricing when you choose to package your text with other student resources. If you're interested in creating a cost-saving package for your students contact your Pearson Higher Education representative.