David Von Drehle moves the rock and shows us capital punishment. His lens is focused on Florida, beginning with a moment by moment account of John Spenkel-nick's execution, from the futile last appeals and clemency hearing while prison personnel simultaneously rehearsed the drill of death on each other. Still, he sizzled, a poor schnook who killed a loathsome criminal and bully, and didn't have enough sense to take a plea bargain. His crime partner was acquitted but later admitted participation. He walked, Spenkelnick burned. His was Florida's first execution in decades, and I think he was picked to hit leadoff at least partially because he was white. For obvious public relations reasons, nobody wanted to execute a black man first. Enough of them had gone before and would go after. Of course Spenkelnick was poor, uneducated and useless to everyone but his mother.
Thirty-plus years ago, while doing time in San Quentin, I came in contact with Condemned Row (it was next to the hole, where I went often), and even sat the last night a few cells from Santo and Perkins, who were executed with Barbara Graham, on whom the movie " I Want to Live," was loosely based. Mr. Von Drehle's words bring to life the days and hours of the condemned, enough so I felt a visceral reaction while reading them. In the old days, however, the appeals process took a year or two because U.S. District Courts seldom intervened. That changed when the Warren Court issued the landmark Townsend vs. Sain, setting forth a procedure lower federal courts must follow when considering habeas corpus petitions from Culture of the Condemned state prisoners. Here the reader can see and feel the quandary of judge and politician when faced with putting men to death. In 1972, in a 5 - 4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court in Furman vs. Georgia, held the death penalty unconstitutional for a variety of reasons but not because it was cruel and unusual, per se. The various states rewrote their
statutes in hopes of conforming to the decision.
It still seems to me that who gets sentenced to die is as much a matter of chances as before. If you look at the facts of the cases of who gets it and who does not, once you take the wealthy off the table (they are seldom convicted, and never get a maximum penalty), the one in 20 sentenced to die is no different than the 19 who got some other sentence. This book can support every position, pro and con, including mine, which is that although some who kill deserve to die, the flaw in the death penalty is how to decide who gets it. The Constitution guarantees " equal justice."
Edward Bunker was born in Hollywood, California. At 10 he went to juvenile hall, at 13 to reform school, at 17 to San Quentin. He had a 7th grade education. During the next 17 years, he went to prison twice more, for forgery and bank robbery, and while there wrote six unpublished novels. The seventh, " No Beast So Fierce," is now in a new Vintage edition. It was followed by two more novels, and two screenplays. He hasn't been arrested since the publication of the first novel, more than 20 years ago.
"Among the Lowest of the Dead: The Culture of the Condemned," by David Von Drehle. 400 pages. New York: Times Books. $25