Among the Lowest of the Dead: The Culture on Death Row

by David von Drehle

Among the Lowest of the Dead is a powerfully written and meticulously researched book that makes an invaluable contribution to the growing public dialogue about capital punishment in America. It's one of those rare books that bridges the gap between mass audiences and scholarly disciplines, the latter including sociology, political science, criminology and journalism.

Genres: Nonfiction, Crime, Death, True Crime, Politics, Law

469 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

David von Drehle is the author of three previous books, including the award-winning Triangle, a history of the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire that The New York Times called "social history at its best." An editor-at-large at Time magazine, he and his family live in Kansas City, Missouri.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidv...

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the greatest irony that the murderers on death row will do anything to put off execution, they get their lawyers to make appeal after appeal, up to 20 years of them. Yet What time their victims get? What mercy did they show them? What guarantee of no pain on death were they offered? Were 'cruel and unusual punishments' - torture withheld. No. But they all feel entitled to all of that. But that's the story of all the killers on death row.

Bill Jent and Earnie Miller. Innocence. Not all people on death row are killers, there are those put there by lies which always, always involve police deception and usually threatening of witnesses who may not be entirely innocent themselves or are led by the police to believe they don't think they are and are threatened with prison themselves.

Bill Jent and Earnie Miller were finally proved to be innocent of murdering two girls only when witnesses said that they had been threatened by the police with prison andthe electric chair themselves. Nothing seems to have happened to the police who threatened the witnesses and set the men up.

Ted Bundy. Guilt. This is how James Dobson reportedly saw him, "He truly saw the man who did all those killings as another person, not the 'real' Ted Bundy. The real Ted Bundy was, in his mind, a liberal, an environmentalist, a guy who cared about women and women's rights. The killer was someone else." Poor Bundy had been influenced by evil porn said the US's "leading crusader against pornography'. Duped by an interview with Bundy, a living Satan.


Marvin Francois Last words: "If there is such a thing as the Antichrist, it ain't one man but the whole white race. This man who killed 6 people and shot two more. He had several convictions for violent felonies and with three accomplices, tricked their way into a house, robbed the family and then shot all 8 of them in the head so they couldn't identify him. 2 lived. He asked for his ashes to be taken to Africa. Senegal 'welcomed back their brother', how they could use that carefully-considered phrase for such an evil man I don't know.

"... and like many abused children, grew up to abuse his own kids". I really object to that. I was an abused child so were my stepsons. I know three women who were abused far, far worse than me. One was repeatedly raped by her father and grandfather and had to live in a shed. One was beaten with lead pipe by her mother even as an adult.

One, whose mother I knew well, beat one of her daughters to death over a night and morning, with a piece of two by four with nails. She then accused another daughter of the murder. Both girls had been sent out as young teenagers to thieve and also to prostitute themselves.

Those of us who were abused make more of an effort to show our children love because we know what it was like to be made to be made to feel unloveable. In any case, some killers grew up in good homes

David Washington. The rarity of remorse. Most of the appeals for clemency write that the person on death row has reformed and could be a useful member of (an incarcerated) society. The author writes that genuine remorse is so rare it makes the other prisoners uncomfortable. David Washington who was very remorseful had to be moved

Thomas Knight Getting religion changes everything. Not. Knight changed his name to Askari Abdullah Muhammad when he got religion and grew a beard which he said was against his religion to shave off. This was against prison rules and he was denied a visit from his mother who hadn't visited in 5 years. He said he would have it shaved on the way to the visit/ So he told the warder who explained the rules and why he couldn't just do it, "Man, when I get angry I go to stickin'". He later shanked the warder repeatedly until he died. A chorus went up, "Another one bites the dust" from other prisoners.

There was a lockdown on death row, items confiscated, handcuffs outside the cells etc. and the death row inmates retaliated. One shanked a guard, and another poured boiling water over one's face. Tear gas was used and things calmed down. Reform and remorse is beyond most of these killers.

Financial reasons for ending the death penalty and what could be put in place that is, for the non-violent, a more humane punishment I read an estimate of $4.2M and 20 years per appeal in a site on Texas and the death penalty. Prison islands far from land where there is a possibility of life and work for the non-psychopathic that don't need constant supervision would make people's lives safer ad their own lives more productive. And always the chance of parole, something to work towards. Otherwise it's like The Picture of Dorian Gray

A comment below says that the death of the murderer probably doesn't bring peace to the families, the living victims who will suffer all their lives. It might be true. Maybe nothing could. But maybe funds would help put their lives to right, help with all the lost income of a parent, help with the horrendous fees for counselling, help possibly setting up schemes to help other victims. That $4.2M in appeals could go a long way to helping not just one murderer escape an execution but may families to heal.

John Spenkelink"You can't do this, this is America! This is murder!" he shouted on entering the death chamber. The first man executed in Florida after the US reinstatement of the death penalty (and the second after Gary Gilmore). This is the first quarter of the book, and first thoughts on it. Spenkelink shot a man in the back, beat him and killed him. He did not deny this. Interestingly, both Spenkelink and Gilmore were white, although in later years it became obvious that black men were far more likely to be sentenced to death, especially if they killed white people.

The appalling behaviour of anti-death penalty protestorsDuring the time of the last appeals before the execution of Spenkelink, threatened the prosecutor's and the judge's families with shooting them, arson and various other murderous acts to the extent of the families having to be moved several times and with full time guards. This standing outside their houses with children in. So they would protect a murderer from execution but happy to murder the executioners. It's happened subsequently too.

To sum up. If this a subject that interests you, this is a fair and exhaustive study of the process and individual cases, nothing generalised, by an author whose writing is equal to his scholarship, and who always puts every side of each case leaving you much to think about. And that's why it's a 10 star book.

[Asim Qureshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading this book as an ode to my recently departed mentor and mother, Dr Scharlette Holdman, who spent her entire life fighting for the abolition of the death penalty. The book provides details of how the death penalty was fought in the US, and in that respect is an excellent history, but with it having been less than a week since we lost Scharlette, I want to focus on her.

Scharlette's life and work reminds me when it comes to fighting injustice, numerical advantage can be made to seem meaningless. Scharlette worked at a non-for-profit with volunteer lawyers on a budget of $25,000, trying her hardest to stop the most disenfranchised from being executed by the governor. The response of the state, to suggest that she was running a slick well-oiled machine is testament to her efforts, that one woman, with a ledger and a phone could take on the establishment. Later, when her work was formalised, to keep up her pace of work and activity, it took 22 lawyers and 13 investigators to mimic what she brought to the work.

Finally, the book helps us to understand the human suffering that accompanies working for the cause of justice. I was glad to see recognition by the author that such dedication results in personal trauma, often to those we love most. Scharlette recognised the harm and toil the work had on her personal life, and yet now that she has passed, all that remains are fond memories of a warrior who gave everything she could, and literally left nothing that she could not do, even into the last days oh her terminal illness.

I'm glad there is recognition of her contribution in this book, but I hope that someone will write a more complete account of her life, as I would love for others to be touched by the mercy that she was, in part of the way that I was blessed.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is more about the legal and political culture surrounding the death penalty than it is about life or culture on death row -- the inmates themselves rarely make direct appearances except in case summaries -- but it is a good introduction to the inherent problems of death penalty since its restoration by the Supreme Court in 1976. Von Drehle basically captures the inherent dysfunctions of the system that manage to combine the worst of all worlds. It's slow, arbitrary, politicized and causes needless emotional strain on victims' families as well as convicts'. He also captures how these problems are baked into the process, particularly in how the need for endless rules to ensure fairness has led to an unavoidable legal morass that creates many problems without solving the one it was intended to. Meanwhile, the state of public opinion allows for little progress. (The book was published in the 1990s, so some of those perceptions have changed.)

Most of this comes through in his studies of the various lawyers and activists on all sides putting in herculean efforts for little or no pay to try to squeeze out individual moments of justice in a system designed to thwart and exhaust them. Von Drehle makes so secret of the fact that his greater sympathies are with those opposed to the death penalty -- those activists come across as the greatest heroes in the book-- and his depictions of the open ways governors use it to curry favor are disgusting if not surprising. But he does avoid painting the situation as black and white, particularly in the time and attention he gives to victims' families and his continuing reminders, while the death penalty might not consistently go to the worst crimes or offenders, it does go to some of the worst offenders. The problem is that it doesn't go only to the worst offenders, certainly not to all of the worst offenders, and indeed is too flawed in the most basic elements of structure to properly sort them.

[Metatron · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I plunged into this book only because Ted Bundy was spoken about. Yes, I didn't even bother to read the synopsis, I simply read it because while researching Bundy I found he was written about a bit here. I looked the book up in Google Books and searched the specific pages Bundy was mentioned in, but afterwards I was forced to read the whole book because (a) the premise was interesting and (b) I had to read the whole thing anyway to understand why Bundy was being discussed in the first place.

The book deals with the problems the Death Penalty carried in Florida in the eighties and nineties. It's excellently researched and is educational and entertaining in an intellectually stimulating way. It paved the way for a standpoint different than mine: I was for the death penalty, and still am after reading this, while von Drehle makes a case against the death penalty. I do recognise there are moral, legal and ethical issues regarding the death penalty. I recognise the problem that executing one criminal costs far more than keeping various criminals alive, and I even urge the government to seek solutions for this. However, these legal and ethical implications do not stop me from being for the death penalty regarding vile scumbags like Bundy and Dahmer. What I want is solutions. Solutions so forensic science can help identify the true perpetrators of murder and prove beyond unreasonable doubt their guilt. Solutions so innocent men and women are not wrongfully convicted, and solutions so the death penalty does not cost more than keeping convicts alive.

Excellent read and very intriguing despite not changing my death penalty stance as it has for many.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are not anti-death penalty, you will be after you read this book. Examines the racism that is associated with the death penalty, and points out all of the inequalities in the system. It will make you angry.

[Crystal Soph · Rating 2 out of 5]

i thought the book was good, but not great. It goes into great detail about each character in the book but spends way less time having the characters communicate. For a death row book, it has very little plot and excitement.

[Stacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It rambled a little bit and took a while to read, but it was engaging and overall I did enjoy the book.

[Gen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bleak.

[Thomas J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmm...I see now that this was published in 1996. I had no idea it was that old, although that fits with the timelines in the book.

I thought his writing was very good. The book tended to go on and on about particular cases, but maybe that was to emphasize that those cases themselves dragged on and on through various courts. But it is a measure of the quality of the writing that I kept reading.

He certainly makes the point, valid in 1996 and probably still today, that it costs far more in money, time and trouble to execute someone, no matter how deserving, than it would to just keep them in custody. And I think we're all learning from Covid that being locked up, even in our own houses with our creature comforts and relative freedom to get out and about is mentally exhausting. Try contemplating what 25 years in a 6 x 9 cell would be like.

I'm not sure how I feel about the death penalty. it sounds simple, but it certainly brings out what I see as the worst in people. And in Canada (no death penalty) we've seen several high profile murder cases that imprisoned innocent people. Von Drehle details a Florida case where two suspects were convicted and sentenced to death after the police changed and hid evidence, and ended up eventually getting their release by pleading guilty to manslaughter (that they didn't do) and being sentenced to time served.

Von Drehl make clear the arbitrary and politicized nature of the death penalty and certainly leads one to wonder if there's any point to it beyond revenge.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I certainly did not expect this book to be a five-star book, but here I am, giving it five stars. It is an engrossing and fact-filled discussion about all things related to the death penalty in modern America.

Although the author writes about the death penalty as it is used around the country, his focus is Florida's death row, which is located at the State Prison in Starke, Florida. He starts off with the national ban on the death penalty enacted in 1972 via the Furman v. Georgia Supreme Court decision, then moves to discuss one of the first inmates executed after that, John Spekelink. Spekelink's execution was unique in that he had been on trial for killing another criminal, for 2nd degree murder, but got on the witness stand in his own defense and ended up being found guilty of 1st degree murder and getting the death penalty. The author then traces the executions of several other inmates up till the three-ring circus that was the Ted Bundy execution.

He writes about what life is like on the row and the nature of the appeals process. As mentioned, I found this book to be incredibly interesting and it was not boring at all. He writes about the lawyers, the judges, the criminals, but also the victims and their families, and nonprofit workers who work tirelessly to help the condemned. The only thing that he left out that I felt he should have covered, was the case of Aileen Wuornos, though she was executed in 2002, many years after this book was published.

[Ph. D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I am a volunteer in religious services on death row in a Midwestern state prison. I thought I was unequivocally opposed to the death penalty. Now I’m not so sure.

Written with sensitivity – toward both the residents of death row and their alleged victims and families – this book takes an unsparing look at the arbitrary, capricious, and dysfunctional administration of the death penalty in the United States. Spoiler alert: it’s all political. Von Drehle takes what for most of us (thankfully) is theoretical, and gives it a human face.

Part 1 focuses on John Spenkelink, who is only on death row because he turned down a plea deal. It was easy for me to feel outrage at his execution.

Part 2 is an account of the passion and commitment of attorneys and advocates on both sides of the issue. I have the utmost respect for them. It also details the craven politicians who use it for personal gain. For them I have the utmost contempt. But of course, they are only responding to the wishes of the voters. Us.

Part 3 features Ted Bundy, a narcissistic monster. This is where I surprised myself by rooting for him to be executed. I really thought I was beyond the embrace of redemptive violence.

So what crimes deserve execution? I would like to say none. But I guess that I’m all too human for that.

[Judy Tarver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anyone who has an interest in the death penalty, whether they are for or against it, should read this book. In my opinion, it is one of, if not the best book ever written about this topic. Gives information and plenty of examples about how our justice system works and vise versa. A real eye opener and very well researched and written.

[Brooke Fujioka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad! It was actlly rlly interesting to see the politics behind the death penalty! Very informative even though I lwk don’t remember that much after reading it. But it does make you look sophisticated tho - reading a nonfiction book

[Raquel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative work, though not updated wtih current statistics.

[Friscomama · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Death Penalty in the United States Explained in Detail.

For learning about the process of determining which crimes can be considered for the death penalty, how long it can take before the execution, and much about the legal process, various changes in interpretation over time, this would be the book you want. The focus is on the history of the state of Florida.

The book was published in 1996, so it's not current, but manages to explain the process clearly.

[Nancy Yob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a well-formed opinion about the death penalty before reading this book, but it definitely confirmed that opinion and inspired me to read other books, like Dead Man Walking. I could not put this book down.

[Yian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting examination of many real death penalty cases and the injustice surrounding them.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I couldn't help but contemplate and then discuss after reading this book. Not sure it changed my views but it made me think about them.

[Meredith]

One of Papa Fraser's favorite books of all time; insanely readable thus far