A courageous fool : Marie Deans and her struggle against the death penalty / Todd C. Peppers with Margaret A. Anderson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Peppers, Todd C., author.

Contributor:

Anderson, Margaret A., contributor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Capital punishment--United States.

Capital punishment.

Deans, Marie McFadden, 1940-2011.

Deans, Marie McFadden.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (pages cm)

Place of Publication:

Nashville, Tennessee : Vanderbilt University Press, [2017]

Summary:

"The story of death penalty opponent Marie Deans"-- Provided by publisher.

"There have been many heroes and victims in the battle to abolish the death penalty, and Marie Deans fits into both of those categories. A South Carolina native who yearned to be a fiction writer, Marie was thrust by a combination of circumstances, including the murder of her beloved mother-in-law, into a world much stranger than fiction, a world in which minorities and the poor were selected to be sacrificed to what Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun called the "machinery of death." Marie found herself fighting to bring justice to the legal process and to bring humanity not only to prisoners on death row but to the guards and wardens as well. During Marie's time as a death penalty opponent in South Carolina and Virginia, she experienced the highs of helping exonerate the innocent and the lows of standing death watch in the death house with thirty-four condemned men. "-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The murder of Penny Deans

The birth of an abolitionist

Marie and the men of the South Carolina death row

Transitions

The Virginia coalition for jails and prisons

Inside the vortex of evil

Marie and Russ

Standing watch in the death house

Marie and Joe

The fight to save Joe Giarratano

Roger, Earl, and the death of the coalition

The final years.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-8265-2162-2

OCLC:

999766326