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Author Event | Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experience of Capital Defense Attorneys

When

Friday October 26, 2018: 7:00pm to 8:30pm  Add to Calendar /   Add to Google Calendar

Where

Downtown Library: 4th Floor Meeting Room

Description

How do attorneys who represent clients facing the death penalty cope with the stress and trauma of their work? Through conversations with twenty of the most experienced and dedicated post-conviction capital defenders in the United States, Susannah Sheffer explores this emotional territory for the first time in her book Fighting for Their Lives: Inside the Experiences of Capital Defense Attorneys (Vanderbilt University Press, 2013).

What it is like for these capital defenders in their last visits or phone calls with clients who are about to be taken to the execution chamber? Or the next morning, in their lives with their families, in their dreams and flashbacks and moments alone in the car?  Through vivid interviews amplified by the author’s responses and commentary, these attorneys reveal aspects of their internal experience that they have never talked about until now. From them we can learn not only about the deep and long-term effects of the death penalty but also about broader human questions of hope, effectiveness, success, failure, strength, fragility, and perseverance.

Susannah Sheffer is a writer and clinical mental health counselor whose advocacy and research has focused on the individual and societal impact of the death penalty. She worked for many years as staff writer at Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights and has spoken in a variety of venues, including an Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights event at the United Nations in New York City.

This event includes a book signing and books will be for sale.

attorneys