Justice Denied: Clemency Appeals in Death Penalty Cases.(Book Review)

Justice Denied: Clemency Appeals in Death Penalty Cases

Cathleen Burnett Northeastern University Press www.nupress.neu.edu 251 pp., $47.50

On January 11, 2003, then Gov. George Ryan of Illinois commuted the death sentences of 167 prison inmates convicted of the murders of more than 250 people. Since 1915, three prior governors from other states have emptied death row on leaving office, though not in Ryan's numbers. Two others commuted all death penalties during their terms.

Despite these occasional large-scale exercises of clemency power, Cathleen Burnett, in her timely book Justice Denied: Clemency Appeals in Death Penalty Cases, argues that the clemency process is not a fail-safe system for addressing endemic problems in capital cases. She examined 50 clemency petitions filed in Missouri, from 1977--after a new death penalty law replaced an earlier, unconstitutional one--to 2000.

As Burnett points out, governors have broad powers in issuing …