''Conviction'' is a novel published in 2004 by

Richard North Patterson Richard North Patterson (born February 22, 1947, in Berkeley, California) is an American fiction writer, attorney and political commentator. Education and law career Patterson graduated in 1968 from Ohio Wesleyan University and has been award ...

. The novel centers on the debate surrounding

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

Plot summary

As described by Sherryl Connelly of the

New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...

Critical reception

Sherryl Connelly of the

said that "Patterson too fully explores the political climate that predisposes judges against defendants in death penalty appeals" and that he "wallows in the legal complexities".

References

2005 American novels American thriller novels Capital punishment in the United States {{2000s-thriller-novel-stub