This is the book description I get off of Amazon; On October 26, 2004, Dominique Green, thirty, was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Arrested at the age of eighteen in the fatal shooting of a man during a robbery outside a Houston convenience store, Green may have taken part in the robbery but always insisted that he did not pull the trigger. The jury, which had no African Americans on it, sentenced him to death. Despite obvious errors in the legal procedures and the protests of the victim’s family, he spent the last twelve years of his life on Death Row.
When Cahill found himself in Texas in December 2003, he visited Dominique at the request of Judge Sheila Murphy, who was working on the appeal of the case. In Dominique, he encountered a level of goodness, peace, and enlightenment that few human beings ever attain. Cahill joined the fierce fight for Dominique’s life, even enlisting Dominique’s hero, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to make an historic visit to Dominique and to plead publicly for mercy. Cahill was so profoundly moved by Dominique’s extraordinary life that he was compelled to tell the tragic story of his unjust death at the hands of the state.
A Saint on Death Row will introduce you to a young man whose history, innate goodness, and final days you will never forget. It also shines a necessary light on America’s racist and deeply flawed legal system. A Saint on Death Row is an absorbing, sobering, and deeply spiritual story that illuminates the moral imperatives too often ignored in the headlong quest for justice.
*****I finished this book about a week ago and I am still finding myself thinking about the book quite often and the impact it had on me. I find that I am in disbelief that at this point and place that our society is in, that a man can be convicted and executed based on no physical evidence whatsoever. I need to read further into this case to actually be able to justify an opinion on whether racism in fact a sad factor in this situation. It appears that the Texas judicial system is lacking in many ways irregardless of any racism argument and that can be said with how the trial played out. Anybody curious on this case or learning more about more "current" Texas judicial proceedings should absolutely read this book. At 160 pages, it isn't a hard read or take a lot of time by any standards. It definitely has made me curious to read more books and look into this case far more. *****
It's not just this case. I was doing research for one of my classes last year and was very disturbed by how bad the Texas judicial system botches death penalty cases on a regular basis. The more I hear, the more I don't want to ever drive through Texas, let alone live there. >_<
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way! I do not for a second believe this is the only case, I actually want to start researching the judicial system as a whole in Texas. They consistently seem to have to hold a "competition" for most executions during a Governor's term. It scares me how the Federal government does not appear to intervene in these situations, even when there is no evidence linking a person to a crime.
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