by Abigail Ramirez

I enjoyed reading the Autobiography of an Execution. The more I read, the more intrigued I became. I believe that this book does a great job of giving insight to its audience. The author raises many questions throughout the duration of the book. This is a book review so I will be analyzing many things David Dow discusses.

In Chapter 5 Dow states, “All decisions to do nothing are hard.” I really took the time to think on this and its meaning. We make decisions every day, and every decision we make has an effect that takes place after. The decision to do nothing also has an effect that takes place. Naturally, I always want to help, and I strive to be the best I can be. Now sometimes I am exhausted from a long work and school week, and my decision can sometimes be to just do nothing. The effect to this is sometimes more stress for me, but in the moment, it is nice to do nothing. I feel like in David’s situation it is quite the opposite. He wants to do something to help his client even when there is nothing left to do. What more can he possibly give after submitting all possible paperwork to help his client?

When David talks about all the decisions, I took a moment to think on how this is related to the Fat Man. It could very much so apply to the Fat Man as well. What do you do when you know that changing the course that the trolly goes on will either hit the man or the five other people if you don’t change it. This would be an instance were choosing to do nothing is still a conscience choice that would have to have taken place. The choice to do nothing ends in death.

For me this poses the question of the value of human life vs the value of his life with his family and it’s quite sad honestly. He was helping Quaker, a client, on a date that was special for him and his wife. David goes through his life trying to make the best decisions possible but is constantly faced with disappointment because of the failure in our system. With this he also feels like sometimes he is a horrible father because of all the false promises that he would make. He self reflects plenty of times throughout the book. Which helps me understand his state of mind in the best way he could possibly open up. David very much so appreciates the value of human life and it is notable through his life’s work. His career is based off helping people who may or not be innocent but with good faith he tries his best to put any bias he may have and helps this person from getting executed. He speaks on how if the client dies in another way other than through being executed, it could be seen as a win and he takes those victories.

David Dow interestingly enough talks about religion a bit in the book as well. He only touched on the topic briefly, but he is spiritual rather than religious. This made me think about the way that he talks about his nights taking a drink to relax or even moments when his son Lincoln is brought up. I enjoyed the moments where he speaks on the brand of whiskey his wife bought him or even the way he seasoned his chicken. He roasts the chicken with olive oil, lemon, and lots of garlic. It makes me, the reader know that at the end of the day he is human just like us and he is trying to make the best of it all. This then leads to the conversation of his son Lincoln being vegetarian. It interests me because his son is growing up to be an ideally ethical person without religion. Personally, I feel that I learned my ethics and morals from a mixture of church and charter school. From my knowledge, Lincoln had neither. He has a father who tries to save people from being murdered by the government. What I had was the golden rule of treat others the way you would want to be treated. I had stories that I learned from bible school that made sense as a kid and still do now. I had the seven pillars to abide by in school. The following words were instilled in me from Kindergarten:

“Integrity is having strong moral values and showing consistent character even when no one is watching. The honesty, truthfulness, or accuracy of one’s actions.

Humility is a modest view of oneself. Not the opposite of confidence, humility is showing a lack of false pride, seeing the importance in others, and being willing to learn and grow.

Authority means being a leader that is willing to serve in order to support the team. Authority is leading with both confidence and humility.

Stability is having a firm purpose and consistently working towards that purpose with perseverance. Reliable and dependable; having strength or security.

Community is a group of people linked by a common goal or purpose. People connected and empowered with knowledge and the skills needed to effect change for a shared interest.

Prosperity is a state of health of the mind, body, and spirit. To thrive; encompass happiness.

Victory is to achieve success by overcoming opposition and difficulties. To overcome; triumph.”

Having these words instilled in me from such a young age makes me believe that this is the reason that I have become who I am today. Everyone grows and learns differently but I would enjoy reading more about Lincoln. I believe that the things David taught Lincoln were very important aspects to parenting and child development. We all grow up in different households and experience adverse situations. So, what is it about those situations that makes us grow into the adults we become?  

My dad says that you can’t teach ethics and morality, but can you? I feel like it would relate to social learning theory. Social learning theory, “emphasizes the importance of observing, modelling, and imitating the behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions of others. Social learning theory considers how both environmental and cognitive factors interact to influence human learning and behavior.” With this being said, I feel like it can be taught. Although I believe this to be true, I believe that changing this learned behavior is harder to do after fully developing the front part of your brain. Children learn things faster and hold on to these values longer when they are in their childhood. I believe that Lincoln is simply learning his ethics and morality from his dads work and the way his mom and Nona raise him to be.

David also talks about how he took could quite literally kills someone else if someone killed someone he loves, even though he is a death penalty lawyer. I am against capital punishment and I appreciate all that Dow has done. At one point in time, I was pro death penalty because of the perspective of vengeance. David was also in this same mindset as me and I feel that many other people have been or will be after learning more about the effects. After I learned more about the amount of people who have been helped because of the innocence project, my perspective changed.  The “Innocence Project of Texas is a nonprofit human service organization that provides legal and investigation assistance to low-income Texas citizens who were convicted of crimes they did not commit.” They work together to gain their freedom and exonerate them. I had time to reflect on how many people are effected by capital punishment. It’s not just the accused, but it’s also families. I thought about the accused who were actually put to death for a crime they never committed. I even watched a documentary on YouTube that completely made me rethink my position. In these situations, the families are more than likely given compensation money, but nothing will ever be more valuable than the life of their family member. What stands out most is that the death penalty doesn’t seem to deter people from committing serious violent crimes. So, if there is no real deterrent that comes from this punishment, why do we still practice it?

There is a factual question posed from this and it is as to whether people can be deterred from crime but is it a moral question as to what we do to an individual to be sure that deterrence takes place? There are two types of deterrence the book, Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice defines specific deterrence as what is done to offenders to prevent them from deciding to commit another offense. The second type is general deterrence and that is what is done to an offender to prevent others from deciding to engage in wrongful behavior.

The book Ethical Dilemmas and Decisions in Criminal Justice goes on to ask who has the right to punish but there is no one person. This right origins from the Social Contract Theory. In that, we see that there forms the basis for police power and also form the rationale for further control of punishment and corrections. According to this theory we avoid chaos by giving the state the power to control us. In this way we protect ourselves from being victimized and vice versa. There is no one person who makes the decision on our punishment in fact David Dow author of the autobiography of an Execution goes on to discuss the fact that no one judge or no one juror makes the ultimate decision, but rather the decisions are always split.

My reaction to this book is that it was really good. I talked to co-workers about it. I talked to them about what their thoughts were on different points given and I enjoyed hearing their views. I think the way I posed questions to them made them think to themselves for more than just a moment and I believe that is the impact that David has with all of his readers. I even told a coworker that I would let her read the book because she was so interested in it. I personally have a hard copy and the audible version. I enjoyed using both. One thing I will say about the audible version is that it was a nice touch to hear the book read by David Dow. I felt that it gave it just what the hard copy couldn’t. It felt like I was listening to David directly talk to me about his experiences. 

Although I enjoyed the book it makes me a bit unnerved thinking about the state of mind in which David is in. There is only so much that one can take, and I feel that it may effect his mental health. It is evident that it effects his personal life at home. In his moments where he self reflects about how he is such a horrible father, it is quite sad to hear. I feel that this hit me personally because it is one of the same reasons, I chose not to go down the path of becoming a lawyer. It is also the same reason I chose not to join the FBI. People who work in the criminal justice field and are hands on everyday tend to push themselves to continue changing things until there is nothing left to do, and even then, the question is what else needs to be fixed?  

Overall, I would rate the book a 4.5. I say this for the same reason that Dow says, there is something missing. There are so many people who are underrepresented and face unfair circumstances but there is only so much that lawyers who care enough for this line of work can do. This book wants to give me what A Lesson Before Dying gives. In that book a man by the name of Jefferson is given the death penalty. This book goes in depth on his search for justice. I feel like both books were impactful however they just feel like different perspectives. At the end they both give you a question to be asked for days, weeks, or years to come: How many people who are on death row are innocent? I believe this book was better than the Fat Man because it gives the reader a bit more to think about or at least that’s what it did for me. I hope it has a greater impact on it’s readers overall.