The Confession - John Grisham

One of those books that really gets you thinking about what’s right and what’s not.

The book is based on the story of Donte Drumm, a high school football star with a perfect family and promising career. Until the town was shaken with the violent rape and murder of high school cheerleader Nicole Yarber. A black man arrested for the rape and murder of a white girl, Donte’s case was a defeated one even before it began.

Based in Slone, Texas, the story describes how Drumm is convicted of a crime he didn’t commit and placed on death row. As he awaits execution, the real killer, Travis Boyette, looks on, waiting for the police and prosecution to correct their mistake. Nine years later, he is dying of an inoperable brain tumor and sets out to clear his slate, and save an innocent man’s life.

The novel describes the distress of the two families- Donte’s and Nicole's. It details the fight by Donte’s lawyer, Robbie Flak, and pastor Keith Schroeder whom Boyette approached when he decided to come clean and tell the truth.

Politics, bureaucracy and racial prejudices ensure Drumm does not get exonerated. He is led to the chamber, and executed. Quite a surprise for the readers who are by this point, completely convinced that Donte is innocent. 

Although Donte is exonerated post humously, the death penalty policy still managed to take another innocent man’s life.

Dont get me wrong, I was all for capital punishment up until now. I can come up with all sorts of arguments in its favour - message to the society, closure for the victims, costs associated with life imprisonment as opposed to death penalty, the list goes on.

Besides, the statistics on innocent executions weren’t as high as death penalty abolitioners make them sound.

And up until now, that was all they meant for me - statistics. Numbers.

There was no face to the names, no stories behind these numbers.

Reading this story of wrongful execution changed that.

Donte walked into the station to answer a few questions, and never got out again. His father died while he was still serving time. He couldn’t hug his mother for nine years. His last words before he got the needle were still a fight to maintain his innocence - a promising future ruined thanks to jail snitches, petty high school rivalry and the desire of those in power to pin the blame on someone. Anyone.

Sure its expensive and perhaps even dangerous to keep death row criminals on life imprisonment instead. But is it worth more than an innocent person’s life? And that of their loved ones?  Is it right to justify murder with another murder? Or is it just the easy way out? "The guy is dead - case closed."

Capital punishment is certainly not a question that can be answered in a day’s time. It’s been a hot topic of debates for years, and will probably continue to be. 

But I’m no longer certain which side I am on...