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In Preseason’s book, the Death of Innocence, she took and shared with the reader her hands-on experiences and eyewitness accounts of wrongful executions and death penalty sentences. She spent the entire book introducing the reader to two convicted felons and sharing their stories of their Journey to execution. Preseason’s stance on the death penalty is almost immediate and clear; she is whole-heartily and passionately against the death penalty and is doing all in her power to abolish it.
Throughout the entire book she argues how it is both morally wrong, as well as constitutionality. Preseason’s argument against the death penalty is both effective and powerful. She passionately stands by her morals and beliefs, and convincingly influences the reader’s opinion to skew towards the opposition of the punishment. In my personal experience of reading the book, I felt extremely moved by Preseason’s argument and it helped further developed and expand my view on the death penalty. Going into this assignment, I blindly stood against the death penalty.
After doing my research and adding this book, not only do I stand stronger against the punishment, but now I can back my opinions and arguments up with creditable information. Reading the book was in no way a waste of time, and not only would I recommend it to any student wanting to learn more about the death penalty, but also to anyone interested in reading a stimulating, thought-provoking book. The book elaborated and taught me more about the appeasement process, different courts, constitutional rights, evidence within a court system, and the defendant/prosecutors roles in the court system.
What I learned most from the book was about the appeasement process, and the numerous amounts of courts and process to get to the courts defendants must go through in order to be heard and re-triad. The only criticism I have about the book is Preseason’s lack of explanation of the American legal system. Prepare went very into detail about the cases and defendants, but skimmed over the larger issue at hand. There were some paragraphs where I was confused as to what legal proceedings the characters were following.
Because I already had a basic understanding of the court yester I was able to keep up and follow, but for another reader without a thorough understanding of the courts, comprehension on what’s going on could be difficult. My reading of the book, along with The New York Times review of the book, both corresponds and contradicts one another. The review in the New York Times, written by Adam Lipton, both praises as well as questions Preseason’s thoughts and criticisms of the death penalty. Lipton feels that Prepare is “stretching the facts” making it seem as though innocent people are being executed all the time.
But then he later goes on to say that, this is a possibility, Just not as common as Prepare makes it seem. Overall, Lipton supports Preseason’s position on the death penalty but he disagrees with her reasoning. I think this book has helped me to further understand the death penalty and form my opinions on it. I appreciated the assignment as it helped me to grow and form my views on an important issue in our country. The Death of Innocence By traitors Book Review “The Death of Innocence” By: Sister Helen Prepare Wallis Belcher