Mary Schmitt

Capital Punishment Book Review

The Autobiography of an Execution by David Row

12/6/2020
 We go on a journey with the author David Row, who works as an attorney for appealing

death row cases. Row has a very interesting insight into the criminal justice system and the

process of death penalty cases. Throughout the book we get to know some of his clients, most of

which he doesn’t like and admits that the majority of them are indeed guilty. We also learn that

he has a wife named Katya and a son named Lincoln at home whom he tries to be there for while

juggling between his most difficult cases. Row is restless most nights and loses sleep over a

particular client that he feels as if he’s innocent but with how the system is set up, he starts to

realize that he is beyond help but he doesn’t stop from trying. Row explains a few times

throughout the book how crooked our system is, and we learn about racial bias, how police

officers lie and coerce, and how jurors and judges tend to avoid their responsibilities.

Summary of the Book

Starting from the beginning, Dow is very blunt in the authors notes in the first chapter

that he had to use pseudonyms and make some changes to details in some of his cases. However,

he mentions that may have changed some of the timing of his cases as well but he never changed

the facts of the crimes because even though his clients are murders, he states that “even families

of murders are entitled to respect” (Dow, 2010). Dow has a few clients during this book and two

in particular are about to be executed around the same month. One of his clients is Henry

Quaker. Quaker is convicted for the shooting of his ex-wife Doris and children before work one

morning. He’s stern about maintaining his innocence and Dow ends up believing that this client

could possibly be innocent. When he meets up with Quaker, he’s begging for him to tell a lie

because everything he says sounds genuine. Quaker seemed to really have loved and wife and

children and his conversations leave Row feeling “dizzy.” He works hard throughout the book to

meet with the detectives on the case, getting the blood found in Quaker’s car tested, and making
a last appeal. His other major client is Green, who is a murderer that killed two people. Green is

guilty of exactly what he is convicted of, and Dow can’t stand him. Green asks Dow to meet him

in the beginning because he was unhappy with how they were being treated in the prison and

wanted Dow to earn his trust so he could tell him about the letter that could help Dow with his

other case. In order to do that he wanted Dow to write him a letter to get his medication changed

and new satellite radio because all that they were able to get was Christian Gospel. Dow refused,

so Green banged the phone against the window and told him to get the hell out of there. Later on,

we find out that Green tells Dow that someone named “Can-two” killed Doris and left a “cold”

gun there as the murder weapon because he was a “dumb f*cking Mexican.” Dow struggles to

believe him or not but he can’t ignore this new information. Dow works with another attorney

named Jerome, and they dig deeper, they discover that “Can-two” had been interviewed and had

an alibi. It seems to be another dead end for Quaker.

Moving on, throughout the book Dow gives us some insight on his wife Katya and son

Lincoln. He still has duties at home he needs to tend to apart from keeping up with his capital

cases. There were a few times throughout the chapters where the pressure of his work would

make him take it out on his son. There’s a time at the beach where he makes his son Lincoln cry

and another time where he woke him up at 3am because he forgot to put his stool away once

again. Dow tripped over it, got angry and wanted Lincoln to apologize and feel sorry. But as he

was trying to put it away, it fell on Dow’s feet and he lost his temper on his son once again. It

was hard to follow Dow’s thoughts sometimes but I believe it was a dream. Dow spends a lot of

time working on cases with Jerome. Dow and Jerome once agreed they weren’t going to do

anything for another client of theirs but Jerome ended up staying up all night making an appeal.

He seemed like one of the more genuine attorneys that Dow worked with. Next, I want to point
out that Dow mentions once in Chapter 5, that the jury believed a “true story that never

happened” from a woman testifying as the black men’s lawyers practically slept. This is one of

the times he points out the lack of responsibility and poor effort in the court room. As Dow

exposes more of what goes on in the court room and system, he also continues to juggle his work

and his home life as Quaker and Green’s executions dates near. While working on these cases he

has surgery on his eyes, so he doesn’t lose his eye sight. He has painful migraines while pushing

through these cases. As a last effort for Green, he wanted to get him polygraphed to confess his

story, so it could possibly grant Quaker relief. At this point Green’s execution was a week away.

Therefore, Dow stated that “Green was a goner. There was no chance he would be alive the

following Friday” (Dow, 2011). If he couldn’t save Green, he wanted to put his last efforts in for

Quaker. Green is the first to be executed. A week later Quaker was going to be sentenced to

death. Row tries his best get him moved off death row or at least buy him more time. He ends up

being unsuccessful even though Dow told judge Truesdale that the only reason Quaker was

convicted was because “his lawyer was so bad.”

Towards the very end of the book, Dow believes that a few of the judges should be

removed from the bench but doesn’t believe that judge Truesdale did anything unethical because

“he would have said so and he hasn’t held much back” (Dow, 2010). Dow pretty much explains

that the day after Quaker’s death, they had new cases to move onto. Therefore, everything he

mentioned throughout his book was true but at the very end, he couldn’t change what happened

but it was his job shine a light on the injustice in the system, corruption of officers, and lack of

caring from some of his colleagues and judges.

Influence on My Opinions
 I’ve been pretty stern about my opinion on capital punishment throughout this class. I

have had thought about a few things differently though, so my opinion is starting to shift more

and more. After reading this book, I definitely learned a lot more about what these attorneys Like

Dow go through and what actually goes on behind the curtains. Dow explained some of the

issues with the death penalty and some of the flaws in the system that he really didn’t approve of.

There are a lot of issues with racial bias that afflict the system. I mean, that doesn’t surprise me

however, it really makes me mad that it circulates in the court room especially when someone’s

life depends on it. Next, the author mentions that there’s a growing number of executions of

innocent people. I only stand for capital punishment if it’s absolute certain that the individual did

the crime (more than enough evidence). Beforehand, I honestly didn’t have a positive view on

attorneys that defend death row inmates because I thought that they enjoyed defending terrible

people regardless of the heinous crime they’ve committed. Row mentioned that because “I

represent guys like him that I must like guys like him” (Row, 2010). Which, is a mistake a lot of

the inmates and death penalty supporters make. That’s not true. Row said in the beginning

chapter that his goal is to save their life, not free them, forgive them or like them. It makes a lot

more sense to me now that they may defend some of these guilty criminals but their goal is just

to get them off death row. They don’t intend to free them from their crimes, they would just

rather their clients serve life in prison because they oppose taking their life.

Conclusion

This was a very interesting look into an attorney’s life and for the most part the book was

fairly interesting. I will say that it was a little hard to follow when Dow would go back and forth

from his life with the death row clients and then insert his random thoughts about his family or

old memories. I feel that was a big distraction and it took away from the message that he was
trying to make but nonetheless it did make a great insight into the criminal justice world. It

leaves me questioning whether or not we truly need capital punishment, especially if the system

is as crooked and unfair as it seems in the book. If there’s a chance some individuals can get

capital punishment for a crime they didn’t commit, then I think it’s we reevaluate the true nature

of capital punishment. I would recommend this book to a friend especially if they’re for capital

punishment. I would be interested to see if their opinion would be persuaded as well after

reading this book and what their impression of the system is after. I think it’s a very good read

for criminal justice students like myself.

Dow, D., 2011. The Autobiography Of An Execution. New York: Twelve.