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This is a book about the taking of lives, grim events that no pleas or acts of mercy can undo. Herein, each and every crime for which a person was executed in the United States between January 2005 and December 2006 is described. This book is not easy reading. In some cases the crimes are exacted with uncontrolled rage focused on one specific victim and in others with a total indifference as to the life taken. What is common to all these murders is that each and every one resulted in at least one other death - a judicially ordered execution. The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution dictates that punishment must fit the crime forbidding cruel and unusual punishment. Only by studying each and every one of these horrific and shocking crimes can it be determined if the ultimate sentence of death was imposed with all deference to the laws of a civilized society.