Description
Book SynopsisIn the annals of American criminal justice, two prisons stand out as icons of institutionalized brutality and deprivation: Alcatraz and Sing Sing. This book takes us on a disturbing and poignant tour of Sing Sing's legendary death house, and introduces us to those whose lives Sing Sing claimed.
Trade Review"A haunting experience. Combining the clinical virtuosity of an exhumation with the fascination of an archeological dig, it delivers a powerful intellectual message about the death penalty. Among the most vicious features of capital punishment are the veils of secrecy and forgetting with which we shroud the rituals of execution. Condemned tears away those veils and makes us take a hard, cold look at the human realities they try to hide." -- Anthony G. Amsterdam,Professor of Law at New York University School of Law
"Simply by presenting excerpts from the state's own internal files, this book offers some of the most compelling evidence against the death penalty." -- Mario Cuomo,former Governor of New York
"This is a rare bookhaunting fragments from the lives of men and women on their way to the electric chair. A moving and troubling epitaph for the guilty and perhaps the innocent." -- William Kennedy,author of Ironweed
"Unusually intimate and powerful." * New York Times *
"A slim volume of indelible impressions. . . . Highly recommended." * Library Journal *
