It's probably fair to say that Scott Turow has thought and studied about the death penalty more than you or I. He worked for years as a Chicago prosecutor and defense attorney, wrote Reversible Errors, a best-selling novel dealing with capital punishment; and served on an Illinois commission that, in 2002, made a comprehensive investigation into the use of society's ultimate sanction for wrongdoing.

In his most recent book - a 125-page work entitled Ultimate Punishment - A Lawyer's Reflections on Dealing With the Death Penalty - Turow traces his career from his days as a prosecutor, when he could call for a defendant to die without blinking an eye, to his service on the state commission, when, asked to vote on whether Illinois should continue its death penalty, he voted no.

Turow's rare work of nonfiction couldn't come at a more timely moment for Connecticut citizens, who next January 26 may witness the state's first execution in 44 years, when serial killer Michael Ross is scheduled to climb onto a death row gurney and succumb to poison injected into his arm.

Scott Turow's is a tightly-worded, manifesto-sized work of the modest heft of those famously produced by Thomas Paine and Karl Marx. But unlike theirs, Turow's isn't a clarion call for action. Rather - and this makes it all the more powerful - it is the simple story of one unusually well-informed man and the quiet journey of his conscience.

Not only is capital punishment an emotionally-charged issue, but the reasons people favor and oppose its use are many and complex.. The expression of those varied viewpoints in the political, legislative and judicial arenas have created statutory schemes in many states that are a crazy-quilt of often-conflicting mandates. And it is this very evolution of the political will, Turow believes, that makes application of the death penalty fraught with peril.

Few, if any, would disagree that imposing a sentence of death upon a defendant calls for the most discerning judgment and a reasoned conclusion that the sentence fits the crime, particularly when weighed against similar sentences handed down in that jurisdiction. Much of Turow's book deals with his examination and re-examination of cases he found himself involved with that failed to meet that test.

The hero of Ultimate Punishment, from Turow's viewpoint, is George Ryan, a plainspoken rural pharmacist. As a state legislator, he voted in the 1970s to reinstate capital punishment in Illinois, only to commute the sentence of 167 death row inmates on his last day in office as Illinois's governor a generation later, out of a feeling that the state simply couldn't be sufficiently certain that it was not executing the innocent along with the guilty. It was Ryan who named the lawyer/novelist to the state commission he formed in 2002 to examine how the death penalty is ordered and administered in Illinois. Turow describes how the diverse membership of the commission agonized over its decision. He describes his own re-examination of the reality that our own forefathers, whose wisdom is enshrined in the Constitution, sanctioned the death penalty. But, with more thought, he came to realize that "they also accepted slavery and the chattelizing of women. Times change."

"But if my time on the Commission taught me one lesson, it was that I was approaching the question of capital punishment the wrong way. There will always be cases that cry out to me for capital punishment. That is not the true issue. The pivotal question instead is whether a system of justice can be constructed that reaches only the rare, right cases, without also occasionally condemning the innocent or the undeserving," Turow writes.

While it was not part of the commission's charge, former Sen. Paul Simon, a commission member, pressed his fellow members at the end of their deliberations to declare themselves for or against continuation of Illinois's death penalty. The commission voted narrowly that it should not continue. The commission's report surgically narrowed the conditions under which capital punishment could be imposed and called for more layers of review. The legislature watered down its recommendations, but Turow still finds it remarkable that, in a state in which the public favors the death penalty, the capital punishment reforms passed by 117 to 0 in the House and 56 to 3 in the Senate. Governor Ryan had declared a moratorium on capital punishment before he left office in 2003. His successor, Rod Blagojevich, said he would continue the moratorium during his term.

As January 26 approaches, many Connecticut citizens will feel the need to re-examine, thoughtfully and/or prayerfully, why they favor or oppose the death penalty. Turow's slim book, analyzing the many reasons for or against the ultimate sanction, is an excellent place to begin such a soul-searching.