999

At the heart of death row


Arnaud Gaillard

19,90 €
On death row, the poorest, the most numerous, without family and without a lawyer worthy of the name, are sometimes executed even before all their recourses have been exhausted. Their destiny will join the modesty of prison cemeteries. In Texas, their number engraved on the cement stone begins with 999… Out of 50 American states, 34 still practice the death penalty. Why and how? The author conducted an investigation that took him to California, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Mississippi and Pennsylvania. A human dive into the heart of American society and its judicial system, through the meeting of prisoners sentenced to death, lawyers, or families of victims. This fascinating book deconstructs with finesse the American myth of fair and infallible justice: from deplorable conditions of confinement to daily abuse, from random legal recourse to political and judicial manipulation. Beyond a sentence, the death penalty appears as a torture with many faces. Moreover, in an America on the move, some signals seem to indicate that abolition is on the way.
The author

Lawyer and sociologist, Arnaud Gaillard is vice-president of the Alert and Intervention Network for Human Rights (RaidH) and coordinated the 4th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in 2010. He is the author of Sexuality and Prison (Max Milo, 2009), and co-director of the documentary Honk.

240 pages | ISBN: 9782315002979

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