"[Sheffer] is also a lucid and lyrical writer. The resulting conversations, woven into a compelling narrative, are searching and thought-provoking. They provide insights into the emotional aspects of lawyering that I have found nowhere else."
—JOTWELL
"[Sheffer] is also a lucid and lyrical writer. The resulting conversations, woven into a compelling narrative, are searching and thought-provoking. They provide insights into the emotional aspects of lawyering that I have found nowhere else."
—JOTWELL
"A searing account of rights and laws, crime and punishment."
—Kirkus Reviews
"A searing account of rights and laws, crime and punishment."
—Kirkus Reviews
"Fighting for Their Lives shines a light on the overlooked personal price paid by lawyers who have the courage to represent death row prisoners: Few ever experience a victory as meaningful, and none will experience a loss as devastating."
—California Lawyer
"Fighting for Their Lives shines a light on the overlooked personal price paid by lawyers who have the courage to represent death row prisoners: Few ever experience a victory as meaningful, and none will experience a loss as devastating."
—California Lawyer
" On its own terms, the book succeeds, highlighting emotional dimensions of lawyers' work that are often overlooked in legal scholarship and education."
—H-Law, H-Net Reviews
" On its own terms, the book succeeds, highlighting emotional dimensions of lawyers' work that are often overlooked in legal scholarship and education."
—H-Law, H-Net Reviews
"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
"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
"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
"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 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
"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
"Sheffer's insightful book will be of interest to all capital defense attorneys and others working in the judicial system, as well as to those who work on death penalty issues in other contexts, including politicians, journalists, and advocates."
—Foreword
"Sheffer's insightful book will be of interest to all capital defense attorneys and others working in the judicial system, as well as to those who work on death penalty issues in other contexts, including politicians, journalists, and advocates."
—Foreword
"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
"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
"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
"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
An advocate for the rights of families of murder victims finds common ground with lawyers working to reverse death sentences. Sheffer (co-author: In Dark Time: A Prisoner's Struggle for Healing and Change, 2005, etc.) is an opponent of the death penalty. Capital defense attorneys are lawyers whose mission is to try to find ways to save the lives of those who have already been sentenced to death. They work in a branch of law that often seems to be stacked against their clients, especially those who were not able to find, or pay for, adequate defenders in earlier phases. Where movies often portray a race against the clock to stop an execution, the author stresses that the current reality is much more prosaic--and deadly. Briefs and petitions are written and filed and usually rejected. "There've been two or three victories," says one of Sheffer's interviewees, "but basically everything I've worked on, the clients, have, you know, not survived. It's been really tough." The lawyers who talked to her about their experiences have accumulated an average of nearly 20 years in the specialty. During that time, political concerns and legislative actions have made successful appeals against death sentences much more difficult. The lawyers take issue with the poor quality of the legal representation performed during the trial phases of the cases, as well as what one identified as a feeling that "prosecutors and courts would do anything they could…to assure that people were executed." Sheffer portrays a cycle that the lawyers seem to repeat: Cases are taken, hopes for victory are evoked, trust is built with clients, and then the sentence is upheld. Disappointment and helplessness often go together in these accounts, especially as final decisions are handed down. A searing account of rights and laws, crime and punishment.
