Life in the Balance is a critical examination of our system of capital punishment. Individual essays carefully scrutinize legal rules that are of particular significance when a defendant’s life is at stake. One essay discusses the admissibility of confessions obtained by police trickery; another, the admissibility of government psychiatric testimony; and still another, the constitutional problems raised by the practice of death-qualifying juries in capital cases. In addition, the introduction places these issues in a proper context by explaining how the Supreme Court has erected a particular system of capital punishment, and delineating the legal issues that are likely to be especially significant in the future. Particularly directed to law professors and lawstudents, the book should be of interest as well to lawyers and judges who are involved in litigating issues related to capital punishment; and it should appeal to readers who are interested either in the death penalty or in the way in which the legal system seeks to provide procedural safeguards for those accused of serious offenses.

Welsh S. White is Professor of Law, University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is author of Death Penalty in the Eighties and Death Penalty in the Nineties.