Conviction (Patterson novel)

Conviction is a novel published in 2004 by Richard North Patterson. The novel centers on the debate surrounding capital punishment.

Plot summary
As described by Sherryl Connelly of the New York Daily News,

"When activist lawyer Teresa Paget takes on Rennell Price's case, his execution date is only 59 days off. Price and his older brother, both crack dealers, were found guilty of murdering 9-year-old Thuy Sey. She choked to death on semen before her body was dumped in the San Francisco Bay.

The horrific crime is 15 years in the past, and the tony law firm that laggardly pursued Rennell's appeals pro bono has dropped the case as hopeless. Teresa quickly determines his original lawyer, a cocaine addict, was criminally ineffectual (he has since been disbarred). She even extracts a deathbed confession from his brother, Payton, who admits his brother was asleep when another man murdered the child in their living room. She also puts together a convincing argument that Rennell is, in fact, retarded."

Critical reception
Sherryl Connelly of the New York Daily News 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".