A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green by Thomas Cahill

A Saint on Death Row: The Story of Dominique Green Reviews

• 
  Larry Bassett

  Dominique Green was on Death Row in Texas until his execution in 2004. (This book was published in 2009.) During his time there he taught himself and learned the skills of life that no one had ever taught him. He had to decide the purpose of his life when his execution seemed to be a certainty. The evident turn around in his life has been obvious to people who had contact with him. If rehabilitation is the goal, he was a success story by most accounts. Green said:
  

  I didn’t know, after being condemned, if I should prove to the jury that sentenced me to die that I was not a monster. . . I never had anyone in my life to teach me how to be me. That was something I had to take the time to discover on my own, and it was one hell of an experience.

  
  In military training recruits are taught to dehumanize the enemy to make it more easily possible to kill. Some might think of a person (over 98% of the time it's a man) on death row as inhuman, a monster, not worthy of life. The debate about the justification for the death penalty is often an emotional one.
  
  One of the goals of most books opposing the death penalty is to humanize the people on death row. That is a primary goal of this book in addition to showing the absence of justice in this particular case. This book takes place in Texas, the state that executes far more people than any other state.
  
  The title of the book including “Saint” suggests a religious bent. I read the book in spite of that because of my long interest in abolishing the death penalty. There is some religious language and references. So, while religion did play a role in the book, it did not seem overblown to me. Clearly religion plays a significant role for some people in dealing with the death penalty and other social issues.
  A Saint on Death Row is very focused on the possibility of Dominique Green’s innocence. In one of the more well known anti-death penalty books
  Dead Man Walking maintains some distance from the issue of guilt or innocence. The position there is that the death penalty is wrong even if the person is guilty.
  
  In recent years there has been an increasing emphasis on mistaken convictions. As more and more erroneous convictions (including those on death row) have become known, a strong argument is made that the death penalty should be eliminated because it cannot be reversed if innocence is determined after the execution. Some cases where that critical mistake may have been made have been discovered and publicized. DNA evidence is playing a role in conviction reversals. In the book after the execution author Tom Cahill has several pages where he gives consideration to the innocence or guilt of Green and makes no firm determination.
  
  I am glad that I read this book as I continue to seek out books about the death penalty. I am “the choir” as in “preaching to the choir” in this instance. Like lots of people, I like things that reinforce what I think. We are recalcitrant about changing our opinions. But somehow we do change collectively and that seems to be what is happening with the death penalty as abolishment is picking up support and state legislatures are acting.
  
  I wasn’t energized by this book and I wonder how much pro or con books like this actually affect public opinion. I was happy to see the various resources listed at the end of the book so people can be better informed and maybe support an anti-death penalty organization. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty NCADP at
  http://ncadp.org/ is a good one that works nationally and supports the many local and state abolition organizations. And I think
  Dead Man Walking is still one of the best books on the subject.
  
  A Saint on Death Row is a three star book for me. I have read enough death penalty books to think this one could have been much better. It didn’t get me pumped up. Maybe part of that was the religious aspect of the book. Glad I read it. It didn’t take much time. I hope it catches the interest of the more religiously inclined. But judging from the relatively small number of ratings it doesn’t seem to have caught on with GR readers.
  
• 
  Jonathan

  This is a curiously tepid account of a compelling story. From my own experience representing a death row inmate in "post conviction" proceedings, I need no convincing of the futility, and ultimately, the barbarity and inhumanity of the death penalty. I need no convincing of the racism inherent in the death penalty as applied. I need no convincing of the inherent unfairness of "the system" in many parts of Texas -- from the appointment of inexperienced or incompetent counsel to defend capital cases, to egregious prosecutorial misconduct to the substantive and procedural shenanigans condoned by (and sometimes engaged in by) all too many trial and appellate courts.
  
  I felt no passion from Cahill -- though I'm sure he feels it. He never really lets us know Dominique Green intimately or learn why Cahill comes to love him and care about him so. Green is sketched out, almost in outline, but never really fleshed out.
  
  I found Cahill's discussion of the legal issues equally sketchy. I know Cahill is no lawyer, but his descriptions of the legal processes and issues are embarrassingly amateurish.
  
  Indeed, there is an amateurish quality about the whole book . No doubt Cahill was affected deeply by his experience with Dominque Green and his encounter with the brutal evil that is America's capital punishment scheme. As I well know from personal experience, no one can come into contact with this system and come away unaffected. But one doubts that Cahill's story -- at least as he tells it -- would have been deemed worthy of publication by Doubleday if he had been just one more citizen writing about his experiences as opposed to an already famous author.
• 
  Kelsey

  This book was short and could have been much longer. It gives a relatively high level explanation of the case surrounding Dominique but doesn't get much into the trial and says very little about appeals aside from the fact they were rejected. This is mostly a political book. While I agree with a lot of what is said and agree that Dominique should not have been executed, this book left me feeling terrible for Dominique and uncomfortable with the author seemingly using him for gain. Overall it was interesting to read about the justice system and its massive potential for failure but didn't give enough background or detail to really lock me in to the content.
• 
  Tommy

  I saw Cahill give a speech on this book and one of the most important things I took from it was how he was still affected by Green's death - he broke down visibly at times during his speech - and his thoughts regarding how irrelevant it is if Green was actually guilty or not. As Cahill said in the book, he believes Green wasn't the shooter but is not certain whether he was there or not, involved or not, and if so how much. These facts for Cahill are not important as he felt Green was not the same person he was when those things had occurred, and the supposed purpose of jailing people is to keep society safe by separating supposedly dangerous elements until they are rehabilitated enough to be returned to the general population. Green was, according to Cahill, not a threat at all and a person who would have been a productive member of society. The big questions posed by this book are why go to the expense and effort to kill such a person, and was it fair to kill him while the two other African American defendants who testified against him received jail sentences and the white defendant received nothing?
  
  Cahill analyzes these questions by looking at Green's upbringing, reviewing if he was given due process through the US legal system, reviewing the evidence against him, the legal defense afforded him, the inherent injustice and purposelessness of the death penalty, and senselessness of following through and killing a person who by all accounts was rehabilitated.
  
  This book was moving and brought to light many of the injustices regarding the plight of minorities and the poor in the US criminal justice system, the cost of putting criminals to death versus rehabilitation or life imprisonment, the purpose and supposed results of a system committed to killing people for punishment, and the problem of convicting people and seeing sentences carried out regardless of evidence. These issues are further exacerbated by the rise of for-profit privately run prisons which lack federal oversight and often result in prisoner sexual and physical abuse, and the social damage this causes our society.
  
  A good though sometimes painful read for anyone interested in social justice, our criminal justice system, the death penalty or the effects of incarceration on people.
• 
  Daniel Johnston

  While it’s really powerful, moving, and thought provoking about the place of the death penalty in our society (which honestly made me rethink my position on it), the conclusion, that these injustices stem from the Southern Baptists and Calvinists, is extremely far fetched.
• 
  Hans Guttmann

  Executing innocent persons is a bad idea.
• 
  Walter

  Wow: what happened to Dominique Green was both a tragedy and a true miscarriage of justice. (And yet, sadly, his case is representative rather than unique.) Thomas Cahill's book detailing his sad life and eventual death is both compelling and heartbreaking, so gripping in fact that I stayed up all night and read it in a single sitting.
  
  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a huge fan of Mr. Cahill's prose or, at times, the way he chooses to frame and/or recount some situations, but his storytelling is top notch. But he is masterful at painting the full picture of the phenomenon of Dominique Green's life, conviction, incarceration and execution. And it's clear that his work is heartfelt, a true labor of love and respect for someone to whom, as he acknowledges, he wouldn't expect to have become close in his life.
  
  Given the book's title, I don't think I'm spoiling anything by sharing the reality that Mr. Green was eventually executed after an arrest, trial and conviction that were palpably unfair. And the author gains great credibility by sharing that the physically, sexually and emotionally abused Dominic (his given name) who committed the crimes was not the 'saint' that the man Dominique (his chosen and preferred name) became, though given what he experienced, it would have been perfectly understandable for him to take a lesser/lower path later in life, too. But what this young man experienced - from his trial with apparently incompetent and possibly complicit attorneys to the inhumanity of his incarceration to the purposely dehumanizing approach that the Texas legal and prison systems take to those convicted - is an indictment of us all and is grippingly conveyed in Mr. Cahill's telling. The twin evils of class and race intertwine in certain places within this self-perceived great country - like Harris County, Texas - in effect, to doom the arrested whether or not they are guilty. In Dominique's case, his trial was a veritable kangaroo court presided over by a judge whose assignment of inexperienced (and, realistically, incompetent) attorneys to Mr. Green reveals his previously publicly affirmed contempt for poor defendants. His trial attorneys - neither of whom had served previously as lead counsel in a capital case - not only represented him weakly and poorly - and perhaps colluded with the prosecution - but actually put witnesses on the stand, including the protagonist's mentally ill mother and an expert witness who harbored racial bias against Latinos and Blacks - no, you can't make that up - who doomed the person whom they were supposed to be supporting. And when you consider that there were four suspects originally arrested and that only the three black ones were ever prosecuted (with Dominique being the only one charged with murder due to plea deals struck with the other two black defendants), the racial angle of the case becomes even more damning. (That's right, the sole white accomplice - who admitted to sharing in the take from the robberies that led up to the fatal incident - was mysteriously never prosecuted.) Years of apparently ineffective appellate representation followed and, as the author concludes, wistfully, Mr. Green's fate was sealed.
  
  And yet there is much here that evidences the triumph of the human spirit, including Dominique's development into "a fully achieved human being," as the author describes him, and the incredible cadre of earnest, loving and proactive people who eventually rally around Mr. Green (though, it turns out, too late to change his fate). And the story of Dominique's Rosary haunts me even now....
  
  It is a tribute to the author and evidence of a story well-told that amidst the plethora of dismaying behavior and developments in this case, what remains thereafter is the good that came from an otherwise awful display of inhumanity and tragedy. Yes, what a much better world it would be had Mr. Green lived ... but among the lessons of his life is that the world is better right now than we perceive it to be and that by our own proactivity we can evoke the better angels within ourselves and others (despite our human condition at any given moment) [a la Viktor Frankl].
  
  So I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in understanding that although some battles are lost, there are those among us who will ultimately lead us to win the war against the lesser side of human nature. And I recommend it to those interested in social justice, sociology/social anthropology, psychology and/or any of the social sciences. Or to anyone who simply wants to be reminded of the challenges to which we should feel called as well as of the grace that is ever-present among us. I am so saddened by what I read. And yet I am so indescribably grateful for having been so moved by this compelling portrait, an insight into who we are as a society as seen through the experiences of one ever-evolving young man whose life inspires and elevates still....
  
  
• 
  Donna

  One thing I learned is don't mess with Texas. This was a compelling story. Having just read The Green Mile, although fiction; it makes me wonder how many innocent men and women die on death row. My heart really goes out for this young man who was dealt a really bad hand in life. Growing up on the streets of Houston he chose dealing drugs as an alternative to other criminal activities. He had a horrible childhood with a crazy mother who abused him (even shot at him on several occasions) and an indifferent father. He was surrounded by drugs, prostitution, and constant abuse. The legal system failed him miserably because of his race and the poverty he lived in. When Thomas Cahill visited him in 2004 he was astounded by the grace and peace that this young man exuded. Cahill chronicles Dominique's unjust and racial experience. He left the world at peace and loved by many people who tried many times to get him a stay of execution to no avail. Even the family of the man murdered were there at the end to protest his innocence. He gained a family in prison that he had never experienced in his life on the streets of Houston. Very moving story.
• 
  Jim

  Although I don't like the death penalty (though I will admit that there are some people I have no problem ending their life for egregious, well-documented offenses), and am fully aware of the unfair bias in the American judicial system that is weighed heavily against the poor, especially minority, accused; and that it should be as hard as possible for the state to take a life, providing sufficient time for the convicted to appeal and introduce newly discovered evidence; and that humans being humans, and the system rewarding victory over truth, as well as the startling numbers of convicts exonerated through new methods (DNA) that revealed the crimes they paid for were not committed by them, and also that some lawyers are poorly trained, overburdened, and frequently underpaid, especially in death penalty instances---I still feel some pause when I read these types of books. I guess my bias comes a bit from having served as a guard for a short while, and realizing that some inmates are charismatic, manipulative, and almost all dishonest, so I almost never buy the whole story of innocence and automatically that the system did them wrong. Yet here is a story that certainly, convincingly, makes the reader acknowledge that even if Green were guilty of being part of the crime spree that lead to the death of one victim (and of course, that he possibly pulled the trigger), he nonetheless was not well represented by his lawyers or the system; should never have been given the death penalty, while there was as much doubt about the circumstances as well as doubtful testimony from his coconspirators, and the rather blatant fact that the only white member of the gang basically walked away scott free. Many readers should be outraged that the judicial system is so patently unfair (largely cause they feel they will never be part of it), and in the case of Texas, clearly homicidal itself. I cringe when I think of prosecutors hiding evidence; or court-accepted specialists who do not do their job, while lives are at stake; or when poor lawyers are allowed to continue practicing; or while appellate judges do not truly do their job fairly. While I do not agree with everything some groups stand for, others win my admiration, such as the Community of Sant’Egidio. Green may have become a vastly improved man, and obviously impressed a lot of people, and it seems that some sort of clemency should have been extended to him.
• 
  Luke Johnson

  The true story of Dominique Green, an African American man who as a teen was involved (the story never really conclusively explains how) in a crime that led to a death. The book mainly focuses on the attempts made by Green and others to get him off death row, with the whole thing being rather exacerbated by the fact that Green will never "come clean" about just exactly what happened that night because that would mean snitching on the real guilty party.
  
  I think anyone with heart would have theirs go out to Green. He's 17 when the crime is committed, a kid. Plus, he has had a very difficult childhood which the author goes into when it comes to the sexual abuse Green suffered. The book does have a pretty good amount of blaming everyone else whether it be crummy lawyers or the state of Texas' entire judicial system. As someone who is anti-death penalty, I find the whole thing rather hypocritical, its difficult to hear the tale of what (as the author maintains) is the death of a innocent man.
  
  Fans of Dead Man Walking will no doubt enjoy this as well, I did enjoy it, but there was a lot of questions that were never answered and a lot of injustices that were just chaulked up to racism and then allowed to go by.
• 
  Eric Estes

  This brief book presents the reader with the humanity and voice of death row inmate Dominique Green. It succeeds in making the reader aware of the basics of Green's case, the questionable circumstances of its litigation, and how difficult it is for uneducated and unprivileged people to navigate the justice system (especially in Texas). Cahill offers a surface level characterization of Green's personality and transformation from a street-wise teen to a self-educated man who is wise beyond his years. Where he falls short is that Green's virtues are often asserted, but rarely illustrated. Cahill also fails to discuss his friendship with Green in any detail, but instead speaks about others relationships with him therefore lessening the overall emotional impact he desires to convey. Finally, though the title refers to Green as a saint, there is little discussion of Green's personal faith other than his rosary and his fondness for the writing of Desmond Tutu. I am still glad I read this short volume, but it would have been much better if it was a bit longer and illustrated what Green did all of those years on death row and how he impacted so many day to day. I suppose Cahill may have had limited access to firsthand accounts from other death row inmates.
• 
  Valerie

  A good book, but some parts of the book were unnecessary and long, wasn't sure if i was still listening to the same book.
  
  anyhoo, when it comes to a black man in america, a poor black man, there is no justice. we see the one white criminal was given an out and not even charged.
  
  if one can't afford legal counsel, then as it was written in the book, the public defender appears to work with the prosecutor and not for their client. no one gives a darn about the person of color. they just want to charge someone and don't care if they have the right person or not. any black man will do.
  
  now did he do it. i don't know, maybe, but the question should be: did he get a fair trial and the answer is HECK NO! he said he didn't do it but knows who did, then he should have spoken up. i won't sit on death row for anyone. he still deserved better legal representation.
  
• 
  Michele Desoer

  Very moving story that provides a stark example of why we need to abolish the death penalty. The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is that there were some parts that were repetitive (how often in a short book do we need to hear the process to talk to a prisoner with telephones through glass?) and some of it was overly religious. The impact of religion on the story is important but some of the commentary was unnecessary because the story is already so powerful. RIP Dominique.
  
  PS have tissues ready.
• 
  Lori Watson koenig

  A powerful bleak hope-filled book. A sad testament to how low and mean some Texas people stopped to avoid listening to a poor black man. It's equally inspiring and puzzling to me how some people have the strength and forgiveness to rise above incredible persecution. Texas did not beat Dominique Green.
• 
  Valery

  Insane. Dominique Green’s story deserves to be heard. So many obstacles against him and he still kept his composure. It’s something we all wish and hope we would be able to do and likely will never be put in the position to prove. Another example of how prejudice and injustice work hand in hand.
• 
  Aileen

  an easy book to read, except for the subject matter. Sad story. RIP
• 
  April Kyle

  Absolutely tragic. An absolute tragedy.
• 
  Viviana

  [audiobook]
• 
  Emily Battaglini

  Important topic and the different scenarios drawn from the author are interesting but overall waaaay too short and therefore doesn’t get to whatever the heart was supposed to be (imo)
• 
  Sonia

  This is the story of a young man I promise you will never forget after reading his story.
  
  A subject we don't like to think about but must as it is a stain on our nation that is so generous and yet we allow this barbarianism called the death penalty, a severe form of human cruelty.
  
  The first question we should ask is not was he guilty, but did he receive a fair trial? There are no millionaires on death row. Had Dominique Green not been poor and black he would not be on death row.
  
  A slim but powerful 60 pages by historian Thomas Cahill. Dominique was held in solitary confinement 23 hours a day with 1 hour to exercise outside his confinement and this helped inspire a movement for an international moratorium on state-sanctioned executions, helped inspire a U.N. resolution against the death penalty, hosted a pilgrimage by South Africa's Archbishop Desmond Tutu to death row in Huntsville, Tex. to visit him, and helped transform the lives of the other men with whom he shared death row.
  
  That he did not receive a fair trial and even the wife and son of the person that Dominique allegedly killed, Bernatte and Andre Lastrapes, joined the struggle to have his sentence commuted.
  
  That the U.S. is #4 in executions in the world along with China, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia is something to seriously ponder! According to Amnesty International, 137 countries have abolished the death penalty. Argentina, Chile, and Uzbekistan outlawed the death penalty in 2008.
  
  There is no evidence that the death penalty deters violent crime. In fact the incidence of violent crime and murder is greater in states with the death penalty. The average murder rate is 5.3 in death penalty states and 2.8 in states without the death penalty. 1 out of 8 are found to be innocent after their execution. Had they only received life in prison they would have been exonerated and released. But states such as Texas & Oklahoma motto is to fry as many niggers as they can. More information on murder rates by state is available from the Death Penalty Information Center:
  www.deathpenaltyinfo.org
  
  Dominique Green, was executed by lethal injection in Huntsville, Texas, Oct. 26, 2004. His body was cremated and the ashes taken to Santa Maria Church in Trastevere, Rome, Italy. Trastevere is home to the Community of Sant'Egidio, an Italian lay church movement that befriended Green. Two members of the Sant'Egidio community were among the five witnesses to Green's execution.
  
  
• 
  Wilhelmina

  Such a fascinating account of the short life of Dominique Green, the lives he touched, his grace, his intelligence and his maturity, and how his life was doomed before it was started. If you didn't like Governor Rick Perry prior to reading this book, you will like him less. Let's hope he never runs for president of the US. If you didn't like George W. Bush prior to reading this book, you will like him less also. Each person, as governor of Texas, wanted to have the most executions to his credit during his tenure as governor..........overturning last minute appeals.......usually of the poor, the unfortunate and disadvantaged. If you thought the death penalty was applied fairly, you only have to read this short little book and you will understand that this is not the case.
  
  This poor child, so disadvantaged from his youth, born to a drug addicted, schizophrenic mother, who not only abused her children, but openly turned tricks in front of them, and who stated on the witness stand that her son deserved to be executed........this poor child who fended for himself by selling drugs and renting a storage shed for his brother and sister so that they would have a place to live because of the terrible abuse and neglect in the family....this poor child who was accused of killing someone..........and who because of his poverty was not given the proper defense, and who was sentenced to death........this poor child grew up on Death Row........he became an articulate man, he became a saint...........and he died much too soon. Such a sad story of an unfinished life..........one doomed before it started.
  
  But despite the circumstances in his life, and despite his living conditions and the circumstances at the end of his short life, Mr. Green rose above those and truly became a saint on death row. A wonderful, but heartbreaking little book.
• 
  Ken

  This is a very important book. Its a book that changes the way we see the world and can potentially save lives. I hope. It deserves to be a huge bestseller that everyone is talking about. When we settle into our belief structures we often move through life looking for assurances that those beliefs are correct and give us peace of mind. But one of the gifts of being human is we can challenge our thought processes by reading or having experiences that can lead us to possibly see the world in a new light. This is just such a book.
  
  Personally I grew up an advocate of the death penalty because I figured bad people convicted of murder could add no further value to society. But its not that simple and Thomas Cahill (and the experience of Domique Green) explain why in this eloquent story of one man's rebirth on death row. Issues such as the death penalty are complex. Cahill fell into an experience that led to this amazing (and tragic) story. We should stand up and take notice. My own experiences on a murder trial here in Orlando confirm much of what is presented here. What leads one to the point of murder? How do we really know they did it?
  
  But the truly amazing thing is the man that Dominique Green becomes as a result of his time on death row. He becomes the man he always could be. Freed of the bonds of his social situation he blossoms into someone that we never imagined he could be. He is visited by Desmond Tutu. He touched the hearts of the victimized family. This is an amazing story and, sadly, one that repeats itself in many different forms for those condemned to death row.
• 
  Lauren Stanek

  I agree with many other reviewers below who work in the criminal justice system. Regardless of which side of the death penalty debate you're on, Dominique's story was very interesting and certainly worth learning more about. The excerpts about the trial certainly concerned me and I think there could have been a lot of material there. I think Cahill really short-changed what could have been an excellent story and teaching tool. I'm surprised to read some of the other reviews that suggest Cahill did an excellent job humanizing Dominique and describing his upbringing and how he impacted those around him. I did not feel the same way. I thought Dominique's story could have been communicated so much better. Devoting several pages (almost an entire chapter) to describing the Community of Sant'Egidio in a short book was baffling to me. The focus could have been more on the trial and errors and everything else preceding the conviction rather than taking a historical detour about this advocacy group or sidetracking at the end of the book about how flawed the system is. This could have been tightened up a lot more especially when the book is only 131 pages. Lastly, I didn't appreciate the author getting so political in the end of the book. Readers already get the angle and the author's stance as you're reading. This did nothing more than take away from Dominique's story and legacy. Very annoyed by the end.