Intimate conversations with the dedicated lawyers who try, but too often fail, to prevent executions
Fighting for Their Lives
Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys
(Vanderbilt University Press, 2013)
How do those who represent clients facing the death penalty cope with the stress and trauma of their work? Through conversations with twenty of the most experienced and dedicated post-conviction capital defenders in the United States, Fighting for Their Lives explores this emotional territory for the first time.
Order your copy!
Vanderbilt University Press
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Your local bookstore
What people are saying about Fighting for Their Lives:
Sheffer takes readers beyond the courtroom and execution chambers to explore how capital defense attorneys cope when they can’t save a client. ... The book is unexpectedly moving, as when an inmate consoles an attorney who has run out of options, and the author is especially adept at uncovering the ethical and professional nuances of these cases. ... sobering and intimate ... - Publishers Weekly
This is an important book. The death penalty's impact is so much broader than we realize, and these attorneys are affected in ways that even I had not imagined. I am grateful to Susannah Sheffer for bringing these stories to light. – Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents
Susannah Sheffer is a gifted and deeply compassionate interviewer and she has written a beautiful, heartbreaking, and above all uplifting story that makes an essential contribution to literature on the death penalty. -- Richard Burr, death penalty defense attorney
This is a book I could have wished into existence. It offers a rare look at the emotionally rich questions surrounding capital defense lawyering, and its conversational format opens up a vein of insight that even memoir would not. Fascinating and entirely engaging! -- Susan A. Bandes, Professor of Law, DePaul University
At long last someone pierces the veil of insult, ignominy, and infamy that surrounds the capital defender, exposing the human being inside. In these pages Susannah Sheffer helps us see why educated, intelligent professionals willingly suffer the grinding horror of attempting to stop the dance of death; why caring people dedicate themselves to the defense of those deemed disposable. – Mike Farrell, President of Death Penalty Focus and author of Just Call Me Mike; A Journey to Actor and Activist and Of Mule and Man.
In her beautifully written book, Susannah Sheffer takes us into the world of capital defense attorneys who seek answers to some of the most basic and profound of human questions: what makes people who they are? What leads some people to commit terrible acts? Capital defense attorneys, often at great cost to themselves, engage in a moral struggle against an entire system, and in their commitment to fight to the very end, they demonstrate the power of relationship and restoration of human dignity. I couldn't put this book down. - Sandra L. Bloom, M.D., author of Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies and Past-President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
One day the United States will outlaw capital punishment. One day Americans will look back on our time and wonder how people could ever have thought that executing other human beings was a good thing. Meanwhile, some of the most courageous men and women in our midst are lawyers who defend those convicted of capital crimes, attempting to save clients from being murdered by the state. Fighting for their Lives is the story of the heroic but ordinary bravery of these lawyers. Read it and be awed by their grace and intelligence. Read it and be furious at the needless miscarriages of justice. Read it and weep. -- Thomas Cahill, author of A Saint on Death Row and How the Irish Saved Civilization
This is an important book. The death penalty's impact is so much broader than we realize, and these attorneys are affected in ways that even I had not imagined. I am grateful to Susannah Sheffer for bringing these stories to light. – Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking and The Death of Innocents
Susannah Sheffer is a gifted and deeply compassionate interviewer and she has written a beautiful, heartbreaking, and above all uplifting story that makes an essential contribution to literature on the death penalty. -- Richard Burr, death penalty defense attorney
This is a book I could have wished into existence. It offers a rare look at the emotionally rich questions surrounding capital defense lawyering, and its conversational format opens up a vein of insight that even memoir would not. Fascinating and entirely engaging! -- Susan A. Bandes, Professor of Law, DePaul University
At long last someone pierces the veil of insult, ignominy, and infamy that surrounds the capital defender, exposing the human being inside. In these pages Susannah Sheffer helps us see why educated, intelligent professionals willingly suffer the grinding horror of attempting to stop the dance of death; why caring people dedicate themselves to the defense of those deemed disposable. – Mike Farrell, President of Death Penalty Focus and author of Just Call Me Mike; A Journey to Actor and Activist and Of Mule and Man.
In her beautifully written book, Susannah Sheffer takes us into the world of capital defense attorneys who seek answers to some of the most basic and profound of human questions: what makes people who they are? What leads some people to commit terrible acts? Capital defense attorneys, often at great cost to themselves, engage in a moral struggle against an entire system, and in their commitment to fight to the very end, they demonstrate the power of relationship and restoration of human dignity. I couldn't put this book down. - Sandra L. Bloom, M.D., author of Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies and Past-President of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
One day the United States will outlaw capital punishment. One day Americans will look back on our time and wonder how people could ever have thought that executing other human beings was a good thing. Meanwhile, some of the most courageous men and women in our midst are lawyers who defend those convicted of capital crimes, attempting to save clients from being murdered by the state. Fighting for their Lives is the story of the heroic but ordinary bravery of these lawyers. Read it and be awed by their grace and intelligence. Read it and be furious at the needless miscarriages of justice. Read it and weep. -- Thomas Cahill, author of A Saint on Death Row and How the Irish Saved Civilization
