Death and Justice : An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine

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Summary: A reader from wisconsin.
Review: As an objective look at the criminal process, this book fails. The author offers his opinions in how case should be handled-however, one could argue he is well qualified being a police officer. This book is an excellent account of flaws in the criminal justice system that lead all the way to death row. He looks specifically at oklahoma countie's frontier justice attitude and the danger it poses to innocent human life. He writes with sympathy for the prosecutors and their flaws and the same time building a case against the death penalty. The book is if you will a death-penalty advocate conversion to a opponet. Its a fascinating book that seriously changed my views on the death penalty.

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Summary: An Interesting Book
Review: I enjoyed this book and the in-depth look at the criminal justice system in Oklahoma County. The writing - as in Fuhrman's other books - was top notch. The book attempts to show us - through a series of criminal cases - how the death penalty in Oklahoma County may be overused, particularly by one Bob Macy (the county DA). At times I did feel like this was mostly an expose of Bob Macy and his crime lab assistant, Joyce Gilchrist. While I did come away with a feeling of dislike for both the work of Macy and Gilchrist I'm still not convinced that the death penalty is wrong. Fuhrman looked at isolated cases in just one county, and in a rather unpopulous state at that. The book was good, but I missed the "detectiveness" that was in all of Fuhrman's other books. I felt in this book that he was just relaying a series of events that I could read about anywhere, whereas in his other books he was an active searcher/researcher on the trail of something much more interesting and less mainstream. I also expected more interplay between him and the local townspeople, but we really aren't told how he went about his research, and there isn't much dialogue between him and anyone else. I will look forward to his next book but hope it is something more 'detective-like' and not something written on topic that anyone could have done.

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Summary: Fuhrman's work no expose
Review: I was excited to hear about Mark Fuhrman's latest work, since I'm a reporter who has covered forty-plus executions in Oklahoma. "Finally," I thought, "There'll be a book about the death penalty in this state."
I was wrong. Out of Oklahoma's 77 counties, Fuhrman focused on one so there is no way he could address the death penalty in Oklahoma overall.
Here's a review I wrote for our newspaper, which has also been picked up by quite a few others:

Fuhrman's work is no expose

Doug Russell
© McAlester, Oklahoma, News-Capital & Democrat

Before the publication of Mark Fuhrman's newest work, there had never been a book providing an in-depth look at the death penalty in Oklahoma. There still hasn't, but Fuhrman's work is one that can be read quickly.
This book flew from my hands - quite literally, as I repeatedly slammed it down or slung it across the room.
"Death and Justice: An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine," has a very misleading title. The work is not an expose of the death penalty in Oklahoma. Instead, it is more of an indictment of former Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy and Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist. Although the indictments may be, and probably are, deserved, Fuhrman does not refer to any death penalty cases from outside Oklahoma County, apparently preferring to let readers draw the conclusion that every court in the state is as wrought with problems as Oklahoma County's during Macy's reign as prosecutor.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
As someone who has some slight familiarity with the death penalty in Oklahoma, I've read numerous court documents in which judges criticized Macy and his work, often harshly. Although it's true that Macy sent more persons to death row than any other prosecutor in the state, it's still interesting to me that the same appellate judges who've written blistering decisions about his conduct in the courtroom have seldom leveled the same types of criticism at other prosecutors.
When I finally made it past the forward, (after repeated slingings,) I found "Death and Justice" to be a well-written and very readable work. However, I'm not certain the book is a work of non-fiction, as the author and publisher claim.
After all, the publicity hype is fraught with easily-discernible errors and so is the book's 15-page forward. I'm not talking about simple mistakes, such as printing "Joseph Hart Correctional Center " rather than "Joseph Harp Correctional Center" or thinking the prison's original buildings are now used as a stable for the prison rodeo stock. I'm talking about major mistakes, exaggerations or out-right lies.
In promoting "Death and Justice: An Expose of Oklahoma's Death Row Machine," Fuhrman has gone on national television and made such fraudulent statements as claiming that Oklahoma executed 21 persons in 2001. While it's true that this state did execute more inmates than any other that year, Fuhrman's numbers are off: Oklahoma executed 18 persons in 2001, three less than Fuhrman claims.
Most readers aren't at all familiar with Oklahoma State Penitentiary's H Unit, which houses death row, much less with executions themselves. And whether through honest mistakes or deliberate misleading, Fuhrman uses that to his advantage. He describes cell LL, the one used to house death row prisoners in their final hours, as opening directly into the state's execution chamber (it doesn't). He says the microphone in the chamber is lowered into place when an inmate gets ready to give his final statement (it isn't).
Perhaps the author has watched too many movies, or perhaps he is simply confused, but either way he is completely wrong when he writes that the gurney to which inmates are strapped is raised until the inmates are almost in a seated position as they prepare to give their final statements. Inmates are strapped flat on the gurney and can raise their heads to peer out of the execution chamber, but the gurney itself is never raised. He's also mistaken when he writes that the warden of the prison meticulously records everything that happens in a log -- a log is kept, but the warden does not do the recording.
Fuhrman also writes about things that sometimes happen as if they always happen. Inmates don't always bang their cell doors in the minutes leading up to an execution. (I've asked several inmates about why this is sometimes done and was told a number of reasons, from "It's our way of showing respect and saying a last good-bye" to "I don't have any idea. It's the younger guys that do that").
As I said, the book flew from my hands -- quite literally -- a number of times before I made it to the first chapter. After that, it was easy reading; a well-written work that points out some of the problems in certain death penalty cases, including some cases in which persons spent time on death row for crimes they did not commit. The book goes far in showing how capital punishment, as a system, is riddled with problems and inconsistencies, but in my opinion, it doesn't go far enough.
Fuhrman raises some serious questions about capital punishment as he uses the book, and his findings, to completely change his point of view, from avid supporter of the death penalty to death penalty opponent. While doing his research, he was able to talk with a large number of detectives, attorneys and others -- including many who rarely speak on the record -- which makes the book worthy of being read by any person interested in capital punishment in Oklahoma.
But with the glaring exaggerations and fallacies at the very beginning, it's hard to know just how much of what follows can be true.