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Death Watch is a topical, up-to-date collection of death penalty journalism and personal essays. Drawing on the experiences and perspectives of Lane Nelson, a former death row inmate and current staff writer for "The Angolite," Louisiana's award winning prison news magazine, and Burk Foster, a University of Louisiana-Lafayette criminal justice professor and jail and prison expert witness, Death Watch looks at the death penalty as a legal process, a social reality, and a fundamental issue of public policy.The topics covered in this volume include: *how capital cases are different in the legal process *how death penalty offenders are selected *the selective application of the death penalty to women and juveniles *problems in providing competent counsel to death penalty defendants *medical issues related to organ donation and physician participation in executions *the execution of blacks for rape in the South *how the death penalty was imposed and carried out in the past *reflections on death row life by inmates under death sentence *the last words of men and women before execution *the dilemma of defending the innocent on death row *feature articles on two Louisiana inmates, Antonio James and John A.Brown, Jr., executed in 1996 and 1997 *the ethics of the death penalty today