jewish state in palestine. not perfect, but not monolithic. ultimately this sad story about the holocaust, is a worldwide failure. evil was stronger than the forces of good. evil put a greater priority of the killing of jews than the forces of good during this terrible war as saving the jews. you cannot point your finger at anyone. >> host: we've been talking with american university history professor, allan lichtman on this most recent book, "fdr and the jews" published by harvard university press. you're watching the tv on c-span 2. >> another interview from american university. richard stack talked about tv about his new book, "grave

injustice." professor steptoe stories of people he says were right fully wrongfully executed. this is about 15 minutes. >> host: you are watching the tv on c-span 2 on location at american university in washington d.c., talking with her festers who are also authors. joining us now is professor richard stack. his book, "grave injustice" unleashing long pull executions. who was traded this? >> guest: trey davis i hope will become a milestone in the march towards the demise. i had a chance to talk to him, and that any family members. i think he was truly a strong person. i would call him a buddha figure, a man at peace with himself, a man who i believe was

innocent and wrongfully executed and i dedicate the book to try and his family. they talk about love and faith and courage. made 1089, troy as a teenager, african-american and savanna, georgia. a murder takes place. the victim is not only white, but i'm off duty police officer. got a stereotypical mellow drama going on here. troyes in the wrong place at the wrong time, but not the trigger man. his trial hinged on nine eyewitness identification, seven of whom recanted over the course of his 20 years in prison. there is no physical evidence, no saliva, blood, no fingerprints, no murder weapon

found. the people who identified himself at the time they were investigated by the police, they were coerced by the police to sign confessions. they were teenagers at the time. they were scared and cooperated because they felt they had to. anytime there such a crime, it's understandable the community will be up in arms. they will be inferior. so pressure is on the police to know somebody pretty quick and then to come back. we need to make sure we get it right. in troy's case, who i think is the actual culprit in the crime at midday. he confessed to several people who later testified in court that he committed a crime.

sylvester red colt. but those recantations are not taken as seriously as they should have been. an appellate judge said why should we believe you now? are you lying now? were you lying then? my point is how can we take the life of a man based on seven liars? >> host: what happened to troy davis at the very end. what was he put to death? >> guest: ironically on international peace day, september 21st, 2011. i credit his sister -- a feature his sister and about part of the book who was a very courageous soul. 13 of its amount in troy. i don't think the world would've known about troy had it not been for her herculean effort and

there was a drumbeat that intensified over the last several years of his life to try to save and edit culminated on that last day what looked like maybe the supreme court was going to create yet another reprieve. he had four execution date in his lifetime. imagine the psychological torture involved fair. ultimately the supreme court said we are proceeding full speed ahead, so his execution was pushed back about four hours and was executed about 11:00 on that particular day. >> host: what is the status of the death penalty in the u.s. today? >> guest: at a still viable, still on the books. the federal death penalty is used very much. the action to repeal or maintain the death penalty is taking place at the state level.

17 states have repealed the death of royalty. maryland is very close. i happen to be a citizen, resident of maryland. next it could be introduced to abolish the death penalty but to use the savings from what the state spends on maintaining a flawed death penalty system to invest in programs to support the others loved ones. there's a big tie-in between the money we spend on a system that doesn't deter others, that doesn't keep us any safer, that costs a lot of money. it could be put into helping the dems, maybe put it more police protection, going after criminals on the street.

.. >> increase security at every stage. this is the one issue that the court system really, really wants to get right. so the appeals, you know, move on and on and on. when you compare the cost of keeping somebody in prison for

life versus executing them, the studies that i have seen, $2 million to a capital case to proceed with an execution, and that is whether an execution is actually imposed not. often you have these guys sitting on death row and guiltily they are exaggerated or for whatever reason are not executed a we still have to pay the price of. >> and many people been exonerated from death row? >> 141. that is since 1976 when the u.s. supreme court removed a four year moratorium. so the more death penalty era begins in 1976. a case in georgia, greg versus georgia. since that time 141 people lebanese generated. >> host: proven innocent or declared not guilty.

speech to a lot of people think that means a have been some dna evidence. only one 17th of those cases were based on dna, many are based on erroneous eyewitness identification. another person stepping forward admitting to the crime. for a variety of reasons. we get it wrong. on the political left or political right, the tendinitis. as long as we have a death penalty we run the risk of executing the wrong person. >> host: professor stack, are there any characteristics of those 141 cases that are similar that make, say, this was wrong, this person is next? >> there are a series of reasons for wrongful convictions. a half-dozen or so. as i said before, mistaken i

went this identification is the leading cause of wrongful conditions, not just at the festival, when all cases police corruption, prosecutorial overreaching, and underlying racism to the system reasons that the categories fall into place. pretty much every one of those one of and 40 cases falls into one of those five or six slots. >> host: as a professor of public communication wire you writing a book called creating just as? >> guest: i strongly believe in social change. my background is as a public defender. this seems to me that communication is the vehicle to

awareness, education, and to move public opinion to the opinion in the direction of what i am considering a more enlightened point of view. >> guest: in your book to use any of your cases, public defender cases as examples? >> none of the cases i've worked on while i was in the public defender's office made it this far. but i do write about cases that i think have a chance to study, had a chance to talk to the lawyers and had a chance to talk to some individuals involved, a family member to family members of the journalists, so they don't come from my personal experience, but a lot of in-depth study. >> host: that change in dna technology, is that beneficial to defendants? >> guest: yes, it can be. a fellow who is on the jacket of my book, it very aptly named individual.

the first person exonerated from death row across the country. 1993. first-person exonerating based on dna. and it came to him as he was reading a mystery novel about dna being used to mail certain. if that could be used to really convince people, you ought to be able to use -- it ought to be able to be used to free people. he knew that he was innocent. he knew that he was not the guilty party and the carper which she was accused and ultimately convicted. city get dna use in a laboratory to prove that he was not the perpetrator of that crime. >> host: what is the innocence project? >> guest: the innocence project, the university law school in new york has come up with a variety of cases and a variety of techniques, the

leading one being dna, to support individuals to are in prison and appeal to that organization, the innocence project and say, you have to have a pretty thick skin because many people, they offer the same line, but barry and his staff go through cases in a pretty thorough fashion and, put the one that they really feel like, this guy did not do it. then they come to the rescue. >> host: had the feel of a prosecutor's? sap. >> guest: i think they have a tough job to do. i think we live in a -- with a system that is adversarial in nature. the have a prosecutor on the one hand and a defense attorney and the other. if they are both abiding by their legal, ethical code, they're both doing the best job they can in this adversarial

system. some of the truth is supposed to emerge in the center of what they do. our system has flaws. probably the ideal of the world. the system that everyone looks to. so i hold no grudge against prosecutors. but i do believe that they're doing their best work. defense attorneys are doing their best work to develop hopefully the truth in the middle and they have the jury system and the judge trying to make sure that everything is done fairly. >> host: do you think there been times and a prosecutor has prosecuted seven a year she thinks is innocent and a public defender has defended somebody who here she thinks is go to? >> yes. let me answer the first part of that. sam mills out is a terrific prosecuting attorney. senator texas. he has written about a case that

he tried that he prosecuted. ruby can two in texas. he has regretted it bring in that case as a capital case ever since he was executed. he then tried to come to the rescue. have supporters on both the liberal wing and the conservative wing. and mills up, the spidey headed liberal. i made in a compass prosecute hill attorney. i think you guys in georgia are about to make the same mistake that we made i think there are attorneys to have elective cases and said maybe i shouldn't have gone in that direction and the second part of the question was to defense attorneys handle

guilty parties? and i'm sure that occurs as well in law school you're trained to take on the role of advocate. is my role to do the best job and i can on behalf of the defendant as though it was my life on allied. it's not my job to be judge and jury. those roles are already taken. even if someone admits to you as a defense attorney and even though the -- view of the there telling you the truth so again, both parties are trying to do the best they can in this adversarial system. but given that every party in the system is human and humans are mistakes and those laws can windup press wrongfully executed the victim. >> host: richard stack is the

author of "grave injustice: unearthing wrongful executions." it's published by potomac books. what is the average time from conviction to being put to death? >> host: -- >> guest: that is a good question. there is no average time. depends on the conviction. it is usually a matter of years. ensor's case it was have a man's lifetime, two decades while he was imprisoned. it can be a few years ago or it can be much, much longer. and the longer it gets the less likely it has a deterrent effect. >> host: richard stack to what thank you very much for your time. >> guest: you're very welcome. thank you for having me. >> you're watching book tv on c-span2. forty-eight hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend. >> you know, the election is over and the president has been reelected and the new congress has been sworn in. we have basically what we have

before other than the fact that we spent $4 billion to have our president the reelected, the senate remains in one-party sands and the house remains a republican sens. we have effectively gridlock. we have no variations on these new terms. sequester, the last week in washington they call this know that never came. we have things like the fiscal cliff that we would have thought you jump off of and i. now it is just related to the inability to find common ground on the budget. so we're going from crisis to crisis and nothing in the election really changes that. because of the way the nation is divided the direction we should take is undecided as well. meanwhile, the power of compounding is not our friend. our recovery is the weakest it has been in modern times. our entitlement programs, everyone recognizes there as a center by @booktv stable and grow and magnitude without change. our regulations are outdated,

complex, costly, and they are certainly creating way too much uncertainty. presentation does not help and a few people gain the power of knowledge. our debt levels are way too high and rising rather than declining. protect policy has gone way too complicated and punishes saving is a success. our social and economic ability, something they used to define america, something that we have been proud of for legitimate reasons irrespective restart if you work hard and play by the rules you can achieve great things, that has diminished. we, in fact, much the developed countries of the world are least -- we are the least economically mobile dial. our country has changed, and our political system, which is so important for us to begin to break through is not capable quite yet at p.o. to solve these problems.