This is not a book about how innocent people have been executed (though they most certainly have been). This is a book about how even the guilty are wrongly executed by being denied basic rights, rights that should be available to them (guilty or innocent) and that we would want available to us should it be us or our loved ones (guilty or innocent) involved in the system. It’s not the easiest thing to read…he references a lot of court cases and how they set the precedent for things which can be confusing, but it is very worth it. He illuminates how the right for effective counsel is not guaranteed, both in that sometimes counsel is not guaranteed at all, let alone effective counsel, and in other cases, “competent” merely means “alive” and “not disbarred,” as well as other loopholes that trap defendants in an irreversible cycle toward execution, even though their rights have clearly been violated in gross and horrifying ways.

It solidified my view against capital punishment and gave me mor things to think about. Innocence had previously been my only concern…now it’s the constitution as well.