NCJ Number
176965
Date Published
1997
Length
409 pages
Annotation
Based on the author's own experience as an attorney for death row inmates in Florida (including Ted Bundy), this book presents Mello's personal perspectives of the capital punishment system in America and his decision to withdraw from participation in the "machinery of death."
Abstract
Two chapters describe how Mello became involved in the representation of death row inmates, including his year as "death clerk" to a "hanging judge" who personally loathed capital punishment. A chapter on Mello's involvement in the Ted Bundy case debunks two pervasive myths about the case: that Bundy received "super due process," such that there was no hint of constitutional defect in his case; and that Bundy and his lawyers caused a 10-year "delay" between imposition and execution of sentence by manipulating the legal system, particularly by failing to initiate collateral litigation in a timely manner. Two chapters discuss the dynamics of capital punishment's impact on judges and lawyers, including the author's personal reasons for his 14 years of "deathwork" and why matters of conscience required that he quit this work. Another chapter tells the story of Joseph Robert ("Crazy Joe") Spaziano, a client of Mello's for the past 13 years. The author presents his conviction that Spaziano is innocent and that his jury recommended life imprisonment (which was overridden in judicial sentencing) rather than death because it also was worried that he was innocent. The book concludes with an identification of the duties of law- abiding attorneys who practice in a system they know to be evil. Chapter notes and a subject index