Capital Defense

The unsung heroes who defend the accused from the ultimate punishment

What motivates someone to make a career out of defending some of the worst suspected killers of our time? In Capital Defense, Jon B. Gould and Maya Pagni Barak give us a glimpse into the lives of lawyers who choose to work in the darkest corner of our criminal justice system: death penalty cases. Based on in-depth personal interviews with a cross-section of the nation's top capital defense teams, the book explores the unusual few who voluntarily represent society's "worst of the worst."

With a compassionate and careful eye, Gould and Barak chronicle the experiences of American lawyers, who--like soldiers or surgeons--operate under the highest of stakes, where verdicts have the power to either "take death off the table" or put clients on "the conveyor belt towards death." These lawyers are a rare breed in a field that is otherwise seen as dirty work and in a system that is overburdened, under-resourced, and overshadowed by social, cultural, and political pressures.

Examining the ugliest side of our criminal justice system, Capital Defense offers an up-close perspective on the capital litigation process and its impact on the people who participate in it.

Jon B. Gould is Foundation Professor, director of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, and a faculty member in the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is the author of The Innocence Commission: Preventing Wrongful Convictions and Restoring the Criminal Justice System.
Maya Pagni Barak is Assistant Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and an affiliate of Women's and Gender Studies ​at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. She is the co-author of Capital Defense: The Lives and Work of Capital Defenders (NYU, 2019).
"Gould and Barak set out to provide an accurate overview about the qualities of the lawyers who bear a burden quite unlike any other burden borne by actors in the legal system. Given their own objective, Gould and Barak have delivered a worthwhile and well-written book that tells us much more than we knew before, but also much less than it is possible to know."--Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Book Reviews
"These ideas, if put into action, might provide real change in a system where defendants pay the ultimate price. Capital Defense is an important book for those interested in law, lawyers, and the death penalty in the US."--Choice
"A thoughtful, immensely readable, and deeply researched book about the extraordinary lawyers who represent the condemned in the United States. The authors have made a significant contribution to sociology, criminology, legal ethics, and the growing scholarly work on professional identity. This book captures the world of capital defense like nothing Ive seen before: the courage and humility of the lawyers; the grimness of the setting; the moral urgency of the work. The capital defenders whose voices ring throughout this book are inspiring. They are fighting the good fight for the most desperate and despised among usin the most challenging and chilling of contexts. You can feel the passion, pathos, and pride of these lawyers long after you finish the book."--Abbe Smith, author of Case of a Lifetime: A Criminal Defense Lawyer's Story
"Want to be a capital defender? Want to know what it is like to represent a client for a decade and win his release from death row? Or work your heart out only to watch her be executed? This terrific work answers these and many other questions about the joys and many traumas visited upon the lawyers and others who make up the capital defense team, in the voice of advocates who have walked in these shoes. [It] should be required reading for Supreme Court justices and other public officials who run our countrys machinery of death."--George H. Kendall, Lecturer in Law at Columbia University