Dead Run: The shocking story of Dennis Stockton and Life on Death Row in America

This book is told through the perspective of one inmate, a career criminal, Dennis Stockton. Dead Run is about the time spent by Stockton on death row, and his fight for a retrial. Stockton received his death sentence in 1983 and was sent to Mecklenberg, a supposedly escape-proof prison. From the day Stockton was convicted he maintained his innocence. The book begins with his trans

The biggest value of this book is that it does something that really can’t be done through any textbook or lecture. This book humanizes death row inmates. This is troubling because once this happens it becomes more difficult to act in cruelty towards them. This is not to say that after this book you will be anti-death penalty. Because through Stockton’s diaries we are told of some of the brutality and almost in human acts committed by his death row neighbors. Some of this stuff is bad enough to want to just execute them right now, but through this book the death row inmates have become humanized. So now the reader is forced to see that a brutal murderer can be heroic in other contexts, that even the condemned can achieve dignity. This is where the value of this book lies. The death row inmates are no longer names without faces, they are now names and faces, people just like you and I.

The biggest strengths of this book are that Jackson and Burke packed it full of information and kept the book interesting. The book was easy to get through, as it was always fun and interesting to read. But on the other side, the weaknesses of this book would have to be the strong-windedness of the authors and that the story would sometimes jump around a little. Some of the text felt like it was dragged out longer than it needed to be, like it could have been said just as well in far less words. Also I found myself a few times reading back over what I had just read to make sure that I didn’t miss a transition, but I usually didn’t. The story just jumps around some. Probably due to the fact the Stockton jumped around in his topics in his writings. Overall this is a very well written book. Jackson and Burke, despite being a little wordy at times they kept the flow of the book at a good quick pace.

of the escape. Stockton’s diaries revealed that with the help of corrupt prison guards the prisoners wer

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