Synopsis - A Saint On Death Row - The Story of Dominique Green - ISBN 978-0-385-52019-5
On October 26, 2004, Dominique Green, thirty, was
executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas. Arrested at the age
of eighteen in the fatal shooting of a man during a robbery outside a
Houston convenience store, Green may have taken part in the robbery but
always insisted that he did not pull the trigger. The jury, which had
no African Americans on it, sentenced him to death. Despite obvious
errors in the legal procedures and the protests of the victim’s family,
he spent the last twelve years of his life on Death Row.
When
Cahill found himself in Texas in December 2003, he visited Dominique at
the request of Judge Sheila Murphy, who was working on the appeal of
the case. In Dominique, he encountered a level of goodness, peace, and
enlightenment that few human beings ever attain. Cahill joined the
fierce fight for Dominique’s life, even enlisting Dominique’s hero,
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to make an historic visit to Dominique and to
plead publicly for mercy. Cahill was so profoundly moved by Dominique’s
extraordinary life that he was compelled to tell the tragic story of
his unjust death at the hands of the state.
A Saint on Death Row
will introduce you to a young man whose history, innate goodness, and
final days you will never forget. It also shines a necessary light on
America’s racist and deeply flawed legal system. A Saint on Death Row
is an absorbing, sobering, and deeply spiritual story that illuminates
the moral imperatives too often ignored in the headlong quest for
justice.
Publishers Weekly
"His face has the dignity of a
Benin bronze.... His countenance is suffused with an aura... [of]
goodness." This is Cahill's opening description of Dominique Green,
whose life and death the bestselling author (How the Irish Saved Civilization)
recounts in a distinctly hagiographic tone. Green was a young
African-American executed for murder in Texas in 2004, who Cahill and
many others believe was innocent and convicted in a sham trial.
Cahill's "saint" Dominique suffered (among other travails, he was
abused by a schizophrenic mother), sinned (he turned to drug dealing,
but only, he said, to support his younger brothers) and redeemed
himself in prison by educating himself and aiding his Death Row
comrades, whose quoted testimony to Dominique's qualities is more
convincing than Cahill's own praises. But Cahill makes Green more than
saintly, a Christ-like figure ("like the peaceful Jesus of the gospels,
Dominique was on the verge of... transfiguration"). Given the spiritual
and literary license Cahill takes, one must read this less as a
reasoned argument than an impassioned, very personal plea against
racism, poverty and the death penalty.
Biography
THOMAS CAHILL is the author of five volumes in the Hinges of History series: How the Irish Saved Civilization, The Gifts of the Jews, Desire of the Everlasting Hills, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea, and Mysteries of the Middle Ages.
They have been bestsellers not only in the United States but also in
countries ranging from Italy to Brazil. He and his wife, Susan, also a
writer, divide their time between New York City and Rome.
Condition: Used/Excellent
