The account of a Florida death row lawyer's decision to withdraw from the American capital punishment system.

The Wrong Man is the dramatic story of Michael Mello's twenty-year-long fight to save Spaziano from being executed for crimes he didn't commit. In a gripping personal account Mello, a well-known author, activist, and legal commentator, describes the ins and outs of this case and the extremes to which he was driven by it. In his desperation to halt this miscarriage of justice, Mello broke ethical and procedural rules, faced possible contempt charges and disbarment proceedings, and gave up hope of ever practicing law in Florida again. Among his unconventional measures was to involve the Miami...

Legal cases are stories, and some of the most compelling -- and the most disturbing -- are those that take place on death row: the innocent man executed, juveniles and the mentally ill condemned to die, a smoking electric chair, a napping defense attorney, a senile hit man. These are the stories in which Michael Mello, as a capital public defender, played a crucial role, and they are the cases that make up Deathwork, a moment-by-moment, behind-the-scenes look at the life and work of a death row lawyer and his clients.

Part memoir, part legal casebook, Deathwork offers a gritty, often...

Every day seems to bring news of legal challenges to existing marriage laws and the constitutionality of any form of union for same-sex partners. In this timely and accessible book, Michael Mello argues that the public debates and political battles that have divided Vermont and Massachusetts will be repeated across the country as state after state confronts the issue of legalizing gay marriage. Mello examines recent landmark decisions in state and federal high courts granting civil rights protections to homosexuals. In Vermont, the Supreme Court's recommendation that legislators recognize the...