Hatch, Walsh, Capital Punishment: Theory and Practice of the Ultimate

This book covers the wide array of capital punishment topics and expounds on them by utilizing a philosophical and theoretical frameword. The book has three important and unique features:
1) A shapter on the proceses by which "hard" science (DNA) is used to address exoneration and mitigation, in terms that are understandable to the typical undergraduate.
2) A chapter on philosophy, i.e., why we punish wrongdoes. Death Penalty texts rarely go beyond enumerating and describing the traditional justifications for punishment without delving into why the urge to punish is so strong in human beings, and why that urge is part of our evolutionary heritage.
3) Short contributions from individuals who have been intimately involved in capital cases as lawyers, clinicians, scientists, and former death row residents themselves. We also include perspectives from prosecutors and attorneys who have prosecuted and defended death penalty cases, and from a judge who has sentenced an individual to death.