Legal-capital

Excellent book, but not a book that is easy to read. Facing our country's history in this area makes us look at our past and often gives a different slant on what we have accepted as history. The information in the book is so well researched and documented. The author does not rely on personal opinion to make her points, but cites numerous sources. She presents evidence and allows the reader to form their own opinion. Anyone with an interest in history and the social conscience of America would find this a worthwhile read.

This book's importance reaches beyond the debate over the death penalty as it demonstrates and explains the relationship between power, money and punishment in America. It is a fascinating story, representing years of research by one of the best and most original minds in the country. Dr. Steelwater's examples brilliantly illustrate communities' and the State's involvement with capital punishment within the context of the contemporary events that shaped American attitudes toward community vigilantism and State supported and regulated legal execution. From the frontier experience to industrial labor unrest, from the racial violence of the Deep South to the mayhem of Western boom towns (and much more), violent historical events have shaped our attitudes about the need for and right of the community and the State to take life as retribution and/or deterrent. The Hangman's Knot is immensely readable with a bibliographic essay for each chapter. It should be included in the library of anyone who has an opinion about capital punishment. American history, social theory and economic geography are elegantly merged in this deeply intelligent and humane book.

This superbly written and authoritative book is a must for anyone wishing to learn more about America's relationship with the death penalty. The author has a readable style and uses historical and latter-day case studies to provide an excellent context within this thought-provoking text. Highly recommended to all!

After Mark Olive voluntarily resigned from CCR about March 1988, Billy H. Nolas became the next Chief Litigator. It is extremely odd that Michael Mello doesn't mention his name nor Martin "Marty" McClain's names in the book. For a vast variety of reasons he should have. One can only interpret Mello's non-inclusion of their names and histories because Mello is a Holdman-Olive extreme loyalist. With Olive I readily agree as I am a loyalist to Olive and his accomplishments and demeanor. As to Holdman, I have very mixed considerations as cited previously.

Nolas was and is an excellent litigator like Olive was and is. Nolas was the Chief Litigator for about the last two years of Gov. Martinez "regime", which was the most difficult time in CCR history (during my employment there) with Martinez signing death warrants as if he was at a Republican Party event signing autographs.

Nolas sadly resigned at the end of 1990, when Martinez had been defeated by former U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles and former U.S. House of Representatives member Buddy MacKay.

Nolas was completely drained from the years he endured and litigated while at CCR, both due to the hugh case load and due to the internecine warfare within the agency. McClain and his faction within CCR basically did their best to cause Nolas to leave -- eventually they were successful -- and THAT is when clients's cases began to suffer.

McClain can be an excellent litigator, however his strategic decisions in various cases is a different matter. When Mello writes on page 245 of the hardcover version regarding CCR, "Look beneath the surface of CCR's 'success rates', however, and you'll find an artifice typical of hack public defender officers. CCR has in the past farmed out the hardest cases to outside lawyers (by finding that it has a 'conflict of interest')"

As the penultimate example of McClain alleging a "conflict of interest" [and I can only assume with the director of CCR at the time, Michael Minerva, consent] is the client Jerry Layne Rogers, Sr. -- a clearly wrongfully convicted innocent man -- in Mr. Rogers's case there were 80 boxes of documents, from court files, prosecutor and law enforcement files, trial and evidentiary hearing transcripts, etc. Mr. Rogers's case was the largest and most complicated that CCR has ever represented. The second largest and most complicated was that of Mr. Gerald Stano, whose lead attorney during most of the development of his case was Olive.

McClain simply didn't want to have such a complicated case as a CCR case, so McClain, in my considered insider opinion as Mr. Roger's only investigator from 1989 until my involuntary departure in 1992, alleged in a misrepresentation to the Florida Supreme Court (FSC) that he had a "conflict of interest" with Mr. Rogers -- while Mr. Rogers's case was pending at the FSC.

As a result, Mr. Rogers had no counsel for an extended period of time until the Washington, D.C. law firm Covington and Burling became his pro bono counsel in 1995. The result was an unanimous FSC 26 page opinion ordering a new trial in Mr. Rogers's case due primarily to prosecutorial misconduct, in particular Brady v. Maryland violations.

To read the opinion, go to www.flcourts.org, then to Opinions, then to the year 2001, then toward the bottom on February 15, 2001, one will find the FSC opinion.

Two other cases in particular McClain's strategic decisions may very well cost the clients their lives: Peter Ventura and Roy Swafford. More on these two cases another time, except to note that in both cases the FSC decided 4 - 3 against Mr. Ventura and Mr. Swafford in their most recent FSC cases.

First an introduction: From 1986 - 1992 I was employed as an investigator at the Office of Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) in Tallahassee, Florida, where Scharlette Holdman worked as the supervisor of the investigators from October 1985 - March 1988.

I have known Scharlette since the mid-1970s death penalty debates at Florida State University, including the debate between Professor Richard L. Rubenstein (author of "After Auschwitz", "My Brother Paul", "The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future", "The Age of Triage", "Religion and Eros", and other books) vs. Baptist Minister and Philosopher Will Campbell (the debate was circa 1977).

Her office, the Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice, was in the same wing of the Petroleum Building as my office at Common Cause in Florida (where I was a full-time volunteer during the day and worked at the Brown Derby Restaurant at night from 1981 - 1986).

The Petroluem Building was next to the State Capital, the Florida Supreme Court and the State Archives and Library. When it was torn down, the space and the space for the first CCR office became the Mary Brogan Art and Science Museum and a storm water retaining pond. The Petroleum Building was called by those of us who worked or volunteered there the "Forces of Good" (FOG) Building -- as opposed to FOE -- Forces of Evil, such as Associated Industries, the Chamber and other big business interests in Florida. The FOG building also included (not an exhaustive list) the Clean Water Action Project, the ACLU, NOW, Florida Legal Services, Migrant Farmworker's Organization (directed by Cliff Thaell, who has more recently been a Leon County Commissioner for about ten years or more), Mike Vasilinda's television news service.

About every two years at CCR there was a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist purge due to the pressures and dysfunctions of the work and the people. I survived two such purges. With the third, I was the first to go in the spring and summer of 1992.

When Scharlette had essentially declared war upon CCR in 1987 and thereafter, some of us decided to investigate her background given some things that we had heard. Low and behold, Scharlette's claim of a PhD in anthropology from the University of Hawaii and a Master's Degree from (if my memory serves me correctly) the University of Birmingham don't exist.

We used Scharlette's Social Security number, her maiden name and her married name -- with all this information, both universities had no record of Scharlette having received any degrees from these institutions.

As I understand Scharlette, she needed the "degrees" to confer upon her "credentials" that she really never needed as she is indeed then and now a national expert on capital mitigation, litigation, etc. However Scharlette can be deceptive, as her lack of a PhD and Masters so demonstrates. Even today she claims to have the degrees as when she gives presentations regarding capital cases, she is identified as "Dr." A key word search of her name will bring up some of the presentations that she has made in the past several years with the title "Dr." preceding her name.

If she has received any honorary or other degrees since 1990, that would be new information for me. If anyone can assist in this matter, please contact me at phar208452@aol.com or my mailing address: P.O. Box 38458, Tallahassee, FL 32315-8458. Thank you.

I have had the privilege of being in this authors classroom at Fairmont State College(Fairmont ,West Virginia.) He is an extraordinary teacher. He is gifted. Mr. Palmer has the ability to clear the sometimes murky waters of the law so that the ordinary person is able to grasp it. If you want to gain a better understanding the death penalty and the laws about it please purchase this book. Every citizen regardless of your view of the death penalty and how it is implemented needs to read this. mcc@wirefire.com

I am 16 years old and I think this book was one of the best books I have ever read.I don't read very much but I read this book in about 3 hours. It tells you the truth about being on death row. And has changed my mind about the death penalty. I am going to recommend this book to everyone I know.

This is an excellent book for everyone who has any interest in the Death Penalty. The letters in the book will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you scream! This book is compiled in such a beautiful way that it makes you appreciate that although some of these people may have committed horrible crimes, they are still human, and still have feelings. I have had the pleasure and honor of writing to one of the inmates profiled in this book, and it has been an experience I will never forget

This is the nearest you will ever be to the lowest echelons of hell - read "Welcome to Hell" and weep for the discarded and unwanted members of our throw away society. This is Death Row's own voice - the voice of men who have been shunned and abandoned, sometimes by their own families, whose lives are deemed to be worthless and yet who show through these writing that they retain their essential humanity and still have much to offer

The best books on Florida's death penalty history, cases, etc. are David Von Drehle's "Among the Lowest of the Dead" and Michael Mello's several books, in particularly "Dead Wrong" and "Death Work", all available at amazon.com. Below is an introductory history lesson:

First an introduction: From 1986 - 1992 I was employed as an investigator at the Office of Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) in Tallahassee, Florida, where Scharlette Holdman worked as the supervisor of the investigators from October 1985 - March 1988.

I have known Scharlette since the mid-1970s death penalty debates at Florida State University, including the debate between Professor Richard L. Rubenstein (author of "After Auschwitz", "My Brother Paul", "The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future", "The Age of Triage", "Religion and Eros", and other books) vs. Baptist Minister and Philosopher Will Campbell (the debate was circa 1977).

Her office, the Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice, was in the same wing of the Petroleum Building as my office at Common Cause in Florida (where I was a full-time volunteer during the day and worked at the Brown Derby Restaurant at night from 1981 - 1986).

The Petroluem Building was next to the State Capital, the Florida Supreme Court and the State Archives and Library. When it was torn down, the space and the space for the first CCR office became the Mary Brogan Art and Science Museum and a storm water retaining pond. The Petroleum Building was called by those of us who worked or volunteered there the "Forces of Good" (FOG) Building -- as opposed to FOE -- Forces of Evil, such as Associated Industries, the Chamber and other big business interests in Florida. The FOG building also included (not an exhaustive list) the Clean Water Action Project, the ACLU, NOW, Florida Legal Services, Migrant Farmworker's Organization (directed by Cliff Thaell, who has more recently been a Leon County Commissioner for about ten years or more), Mike Vasilinda's television news service.

About every two years at CCR there was a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist purge due to the pressures and dysfunctions of the work and the people. I survived two such purges. With the third, I was the first to go in the spring and summer of 1992.

When Scharlette had essentially declared war upon CCR in 1987 and thereafter, some of us decided to investigate her background given some things that we had heard. Low and behold, Scharlette's claim of a PhD in anthropology from the University of Hawaii and a Master's Degree from (if my memory serves me correctly) the University of Birmingham don't exist.

We used Scharlette's Social Security number, her maiden name and her married name -- with all this information, both universities had no record of Scharlette having received any degrees from these institutions.

As I understand Scharlette, she needed the "degrees" to confer upon her "credentials" that she really never needed as she is indeed then and now a national expert on capital mitigation, litigation, etc. However Scharlette can be deceptive, as her lack of a PhD and Masters so demonstrates. Even today she claims to have the degrees as when she gives presentations regarding capital cases, she is identified as "Dr." A key word search of her name will bring up some of the presentations that she has made in the past several years with the title "Dr." preceding her name.

If she has received any honorary or other degrees since 1990, that would be new information for me. If anyone can assist in this matter, please contact me at phar208452@aol.com or my mailing address: P.O. Box 38458, Tallahassee, FL 32315-8458. Thank you.

Death Penalty Cases is a well written, concise, and unbiased overview of 19 United States Supreme Court cases chronicling the recent evolution of capitol punishment in the United States. Each chapter is devoted to a single case and begins by detailing the issues the Supreme Court addressed in that case as well as the rule of law that arose from the case. This method of presentation is appropriate for insuring that adult readers understand the legal basis of capitol punishment but are free to form their own opinions about the ethics and morality of this hotly debated subject.

Anybody with any viewpoint whatsoever on the subject of the death penalty will want, and need, to review the hard anecdotes that are interspersed within this brief but wide-ranging overview. For those of you who oppose the death penalty on moral grounds, you will fine augmentation for the foundations of your feelings. For those who aren't sure but who are afraid that innocent people might be executed under an imperfect system, the authors provide you with frightening evidence that you're right. And for those looking toward a legislative reconsideration of the entire subject, the appendix is invaluable.

This book is outstanding in its analysis of this important issue. Particularly insightful is the work of editors (ghost writers?) Denis Gaynor and John McFarlane. Mssrs. Gaynor and McFarlane outline in glorious, living detail the horrors of a death penalty culture. Highly recommended.

Two to three thumbs up!

Over this book and the actual story itself there are many skeletons in the closets of Martinsville families over the tragic end of seven young lives. Seems that the victim wasn't really so innocent after all, but the lives of those men cannot be replaced, even now when we know the truth. Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, and yes, even those who falsely point fingers shall reap the rewards of doom.

I think Rise did a great job but me a Martinsville resident think that someone from Martinsville should have made a book about it and it seems like everyone wants to keep it a secret but I want to know.

This is an outstanding and balanced work on the death penalty. All sides are represented and the first chapter is one of the best histories of the death penalty ever written. Those supporting the death penalty and those opposing the death penalty will find much in this work to devour. More than anything, this work shows that there are no easy answers and in fact, no easy questions. The authors are well known and include lawyers, teachers, Congressional people, lobbyists, etc. This is a work one should include in any discussion of the death penalty.

This overview looks at all sides of this very important issue. Beginning with a background history, this collection of articles covers a perspective ranging from those of prosecutors, to death row inmates, to pardons boards, to family members of victims. This work has no particular axe to grind which I find extremely refreshing. This work is an excellent educational tool for exploring all facets of the death penalty. I highly recommed it in a classroom, resource center, or library.

It is interesting in today's world to see books that remond us all the present and future value of intellectual capital. It is unfortunate the book does not focus on the de-valuation of intellectual capital when downsizing occurs in an organisation. The cost of replacing the intellectual capital does never figure in anual reports, it is 'hidden' by other standard costs, such as employee related costs, equipments, etc. We need to establish a quantification method, so that intellectual capital replacement is thoroughly investigated.

Forgot to add this to my Amazon list of "The Most Subversive Works Imaginable" (so check those out too!). This book is just mind blowing. I read it while taking a "History of Witchcraft" class in college. Anyone interested in animal rights, the tyranny of the courts and the solopsistic nature of "civilized" religion will be intrigued. It will make you seriously question the current practice of putting to death circus elephants who run amok, or pit bills who kill children. Very chilling to think that we have not, in some basic sense, escaped our mediaeval antecedents. Written in 1906, the text is a bit footnote-stodgy scholarly, but Evans brings the thoughts of philosophers, religious reasoners, and scientific pundits to bear on Europe's animal trials and how these slaughtered sparrows, garetted geese, and hung horses helped humans distinguish themselves from the animals. FASCINATING!

The recent actions by former Illinois Governor Ryan have raised many questions about capital punishment in the United States. I have read or heard several commentaries that have suggested the new focus on the death penalty may lead to its abolition. As an opponent of capital punishment, I hope this is true. But I doubt it.

A reader of Stuart Banner's "The Death Penalty: An American History" will realize very little new can be added to the debate. Banner provides an extensively detailed account of all aspects of the death penalty throughout the past 350 years. From colonial times through the execution of Timothy McVeigh, this book looks at the logistics, politics, and theology of capital punishment. The author comes as close to complete objectivity in presenting the history as possible. Banner is fair in showing the strengths and weaknesses in arguments for and against capital punishment. And he provides fascinating information concerning the debates that surrounded periodic changes in how the death penalty was administered. Throughout history there have been many debates: the merits of hanging versus electrocution; the arguments for and against public execution; the role of penitence (thus the name penitentiary) in punishment.

I found that this history of one issue was very much a microcosm of the broader history of the United States. For instance, I was not familiar with the legal term petit treason. This describes the concept of treason-an offense against someone to whom absolute loyalty is owed-in private life. Those convicted of petit treason were subject the "more severe" punishment of death by burning. In 17th and 18th century America two classes were capable of being convicted of petit treason. The classes were slaves "convicted of murdering their owners or of plotting a revolt" and women "convicted of killing their husbands." (p. 71)

Class played a pivotal role in the move from public hangings to jail yard executions. Banner describes how elites in the 19th century became appalled at public hangings because the large crowds were rowdy and displayed lower class sensibilities. Simply put, those in power were not opposed to hanging-they were opposed to being in the presence of the working class when the restraints of the workplace were removed.

Class, race, and gender divisions are evident in almost every area of this controversial issue. And no great American controversy would be complete with religious implications. In fact, no less a public preacher than Cotton Mather worried in the 17th century that he could rise to the occasion of giving the sermon to the crowd of thousands that attended executions. As the author notes about public hangings: "An execution could be a splendid occasion for reinforcing religious authority." To this day, capital punishment attracts those in authority to make religious arguments both in opposition and support of the death penalty.

As stated earlier, this book is not a polemic. It is an accurate history of one of our most contentious issues. As is the case with history, I am sure both those if favor of capital punishments and abolitionists can find many facts to support their beliefs. It is also true that a better understanding of history must allow all involved to reconsider some beliefs. "The Death Penalty: An American History" should be read by every legislator who will vote on state-sanctioned killing.

First an introduction: From 1986 - 1992 I was employed as an investigator at the Office of Capital Collateral Representative (CCR) in Tallahassee, Florida, where Scharlette Holdman worked as the supervisor of the investigators from October 1985 - March 1988.

I have known Scharlette since the mid-1970s death penalty debates at Florida State University, including the debate between Professor Richard L. Rubenstein (author of "After Auschwitz", "My Brother Paul", "The Cunning of History: Mass Death and the American Future", "The Age of Triage", "Religion and Eros", and other books) vs. Baptist Minister and Philosopher Will Campbell (the debate was circa 1977).

Her office, the Clearinghouse on Criminal Justice, was in the same wing of the Petroleum Building as my office at Common Cause in Florida (where I was a full-time volunteer during the day and worked at the Brown Derby Restaurant at night from 1981 - 1986).

The Petroluem Building was next to the State Capital, the Florida Supreme Court and the State Archives and Library. When it was torn down, the space and the space for the first CCR office became the Mary Brogan Art and Science Museum and a storm water retaining pond. The Petroleum Building was called by those of us who worked or volunteered there the "Forces of Good" (FOG) Building -- as opposed to FOE -- Forces of Evil, such as Associated Industries, the Chamber and other big business interests in Florida. The FOG building also included (not an exhaustive list) the Clean Water Action Project, the ACLU, NOW, Florida Legal Services, Migrant Farmworker's Organization (directed by Cliff Thaell, who has more recently been a Leon County Commissioner for about ten years or more), Mike Vasilinda's television news service.

About every two years at CCR there was a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist-Maoist purge due to the pressures and dysfunctions of the work and the people. I survived two such purges. With the third, I was the first to go in the spring and summer of 1992.

When Scharlette had essentially declared war upon CCR in 1987 and thereafter, some of us decided to investigate her background given some things that we had heard. Low and behold, Scharlette's claim of a PhD in anthropology from the University of Hawaii and a Master's Degree from (if my memory serves me correctly) the University of Birmingham don't exist.

We used Scharlette's Social Security number, her maiden name and her married name -- with all this information, both universities had no record of Scharlette having received any degrees from these institutions.

As I understand Scharlette, she needed the "degrees" to confer upon her "credentials" that she really never needed as she is indeed then and now a national expert on capital mitigation, litigation, etc. However Scharlette can be deceptive, as her lack of a PhD and Masters so demonstrates. Even today she claims to have the degrees as when she gives presentations regarding capital cases, she is identified as "Dr." A key word search of her name will bring up some of the presentations that she has made in the past several years with the title "Dr." preceding her name.

If she has received any honorary or other degrees since 1990, that would be new information for me. If anyone can assist in this matter, please contact me at phar208452@aol.com or my mailing address: P.O. Box 38458, Tallahassee, FL 32315-8458. Thank you.

After Mark Olive voluntarily resigned from CCR about March 1988, Billy H. Nolas became the next Chief Litigator. It is extremely odd that Michael Mello doesn't mention his name nor Martin "Marty" McClain's names in the book. For a vast variety of reasons he should have. One can only interpret Mello's non-inclusion of their names and histories because Mello is a Holdman-Olive extreme loyalist. With Olive I readily agree as I am a loyalist to Olive and his accomplishments and demeanor. As to Holdman, I have very mixed considerations as cited previously.

Nolas was and is an excellent litigator like Olive was and is. Nolas was the Chief Litigator for about the last two years of Gov. Martinez "regime", which was the most difficult time in CCR history (during my employment there) with Martinez signing death warrants as if he was at a Republican Party event signing autographs.

Nolas sadly resigned at the end of 1990, when Martinez had been defeated by former U.S. Senator Lawton Chiles and former U.S. House of Representatives member Buddy MacKay.

Nolas was completely drained from the years he endured and litigated while at CCR, both due to the hugh case load and due to the internecine warfare within the agency. McClain and his faction within CCR basically did their best to cause Nolas to leave -- eventually they were successful -- and THAT is when clients's cases began to suffer.

McClain can be an excellent litigator, however his strategic decisions in various cases is a different matter. When Mello writes on page 245 of the hardcover version regarding CCR, "Look beneath the surface of CCR's 'success rates', however, and you'll find an artifice typical of hack public defender officers. CCR has in the past farmed out the hardest cases to outside lawyers (by finding that it has a 'conflict of interest')"

As the penultimate example of McClain alleging a "conflict of interest" [and I can only assume with the director of CCR at the time, Michael Minerva, consent] is the client Jerry Layne Rogers, Sr. -- a clearly wrongfully convicted innocent man -- in Mr. Rogers's case there were 80 boxes of documents, from court files, prosecutor and law enforcement files, trial and evidentiary hearing transcripts, etc. Mr. Rogers's case was the largest and most complicated that CCR has ever represented. The second largest and most complicated was that of Mr. Gerald Stano, whose lead attorney during most of the development of his case was Olive.

McClain simply didn't want to have such a complicated case as a CCR case, so McClain, in my considered insider opinion as Mr. Roger's only investigator from 1989 until my involuntary departure in 1992, alleged in a misrepresentation to the Florida Supreme Court (FSC) that he had a "conflict of interest" with Mr. Rogers -- while Mr. Rogers's case was pending at the FSC.

As a result, Mr. Rogers had no counsel for an extended period of time until the Washington, D.C. law firm Covington and Burling became his pro bono counsel in 1995. The result was an unanimous FSC 26 page opinion ordering a new trial in Mr. Rogers's case due primarily to prosecutorial misconduct, in particular Brady v. Maryland violations.

To read the opinion, go to www.flcourts.org, then to Opinions, then to the year 2001, then toward the bottom on February 15, 2001, one will find the FSC opinion.

Two other cases in particular McClain's strategic decisions may very well cost the clients their lives: Peter Ventura and Roy Swafford. More on these two cases another time, except to note that in both cases the FSC decided 4 - 3 against Mr. Ventura and Mr. Swafford in their most recent FSC cases.