Countless souls have made the spectral walk to the gallows, have heard the dusty rasp of death’s mournful eulogy whispered odiously from his pale throat, “dead man walking.” The condemned have been hung by the neck until dead, shot, poisoned, decapitated, stoned, or clapped in an iron skull cap while 10 thousand volts of electricity boil the life from flesh and bone. But, this is justice, when delivered by legitimate authority. This is the only atonement that can be made to expunge a crime so black and abhorrent that its presence distorts and tortures nature and its order. Capital punishment...