Sentenced to death in 1965 at age twenty for an unpremeditated murder during the bungled holdup of a convenience store, Billy Wayne spent his first seven prison years on death row. When the death penalty was abolished, his sentence was life. Three-and-a-half decades later, Billy Wayne is still behind bars-feared by many politicians and prison officials for his well-known incorruptibility and unrelenting crusade for prison reform. This is his memoir.A Life in the Balance be...

Billy Wayne Sinclair was only twenty-one when sentenced to death. Because of an accidental shooting, he spent the next forty years in prison. When the Supreme Court struck down the death penalty, Billy was re-sentenced to life without parole. Here, he offers a blistering examination of the death penalty and its origins.