There will always be cases that cry out to me for ultimate punishment that is not the true issue the pivotal question instead is whether a system of justice can be constructed that reaches only the rare right cases without also occasionally condemning the innocent or the undeserving. In the words of harvard law professor laurence h tribe ultimate punishment is the ultimate statement about the death penalty to read it is to understand why law alone cannot make us whole as a respected criminal lawyer scott turow has been in. And then you kill them and you kill somebody who in most instances has been rendered docile by the restrictive environment in which they are locked up the one thing that really came over me is . Scott turow traces the evolution of his own views of the death penalty relating it to his successful appeals for two clients given death sentences