Death Penalty in a Nutshell (Nutshell Series) (ISBN 0314158839)

Worthless:
Not only is this the worst Nutshell I've ever read, this is the worst publication of any kind that I've ever read. I was stunned to find, almost immediately, grammatical and even proofreading errors on nearly every page of this guide that would have been obvious to a 5th grader. This is not just another exaggeration from an obsessive-compulsive law student: there tons of "sentences" in this book that didn't even have VERBS. It's disgusting that a book with so many glaring errors was written by a law professor and published by a West subsidiary. Besides the unforgiveable and outrageous grammatical and proofreading errors that managed to escape whatever "editing" this book may have ever had, this Nutshell does little to nothing to shed any light on American Capital Punishment law. Granted, the topic is overwhelmingly broad, as every state basically is left to set its own standards once the federal guarantees are met, but even so, this guide essentially told me nothing. The author is unabashedly anti-death penalty, which is fine, but as a practioner of law, there is no excuse for his inability or unwillingess to present the law with at least a semblance of objectivity. There should be no room in this kind of study guide for shameless positioning of his platform and sarcastic and oversimplified jabs on pro-death penalty conservatives. Incidentally, I'm a raging liberal categorically opposed to capital punishment, so you know this book's slant has got to be especially egregious.

An excellent survey of a thorny topic:
Victor Streib does a superb job of laying forth the complexities and subtleties of capital punishment in easy-to-understand terms. This book is a must have for any law student wading through a capital punishment course (I can personally attest to that), and I imagine a good resource for the veteran attorney who needs to re-soak the mental sponge with a fresh review on the subject. Easy to read. Comprehensive but accessible information. Highly recommended!