Arbitrary Death: A Prosecutor's Perspective on the Death Penalty

Over nearly four decades as a prosecutor, Rick Unklesbay tried more than one hundred murder cases before juries and witnessed sixteen men and women sentenced to death. Arbitrary Death is his unflinching account of that career, and of the conclusion he eventually could not avoid: the system is broken. Through detailed reconstructions of some of the most harrowing murder cases in Tucson, Arizona's history, Unklesbay examines what actually happens when the state pursues the ultimate punishment. His analysis is methodical and dispassionate: prosecutors, trial courts, juries, and appellate courts all contribute to a process that, despite its gravity, operates less like a principled system than a roll of the dice. Whether a defendant lives or dies turns as much on circumstance as on law. Unklesbay's case against the death penalty is not built on sentiment. It is the deliberate conclusion of someone who spent decades inside its machinery and came to believe that no human institution can administer death with the consistency and fairness the Constitution demands. His account confronts readers with a hard question, can a nation committed to equal justice under law keep defending a punishment that is applied arbitrarily, often long after the sentence was first handed down?