Adam Hall, a young Chicago lawyer, travels to Mississippi to represent Sam Cayhall, a convicted murderer facing execution in the gas chamber. Sam is a former Klansman responsible for a 1967 bombing that killed two Jewish children and maimed their father. As the execution date nears, Adam reveals he is actually Sam's grandson and attempts to stay the sentence through a series of desperate legal motions. The narrative follows the specific procedural steps of the death penalty appeals process and the racial history behind the Cayhall family's involvement in white supremacist violence.
This book is for readers interested in the technicalities of capital punishment and the legal bureaucracy of the American South. Lawyers and legal students read it to see the intersection of criminal procedure and family dysfunction. The reader finishes the book with a detailed understanding of how a death warrant is carried out and the psychological effects of decades spent on death row. It provides a look at the transition from 1960s racial terrorism to the formalized legal systems of the 1990s.
Practical, clear-cut and escapist; an easy read.
Best for readers like The Curious Generalist. Which reader are you?
- Published
- 1994
- Language
- EN
