Multimedia and Web Resources

Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Video

What Happens on Execution Day? A Death Penalty Documentary
This is a short, 10 minute documentary outlining the events that occur on execution day for those sentenced with the death penalty. A doctor at the state prison walks viewers through the routine of preparing for and carrying out an execution from beginning to end.

Is Our Execution Method Cruel and Unusual?
For states that do enforce the death penalty, death by lethal injection is often considered the more "humane" method. But with news of secret drug cocktails, botched injections, and painful executions, that no longer seems the case. What's going on? Tara Long explains why it's crucially important we know the drug combinations used in our lethal injection cocktails.

CNN: The high cost of death row
Should states abolish death row to save money? CNN explores the controversy.

Inside Story Americas - How many innocent people has the US executed?
More than 20 years after Texas executed Carlos DeLuna, a study reveals he was innocent. Support for capital punishment in the US has been on the decline over the last two decades. We take a closer look at the DeLuna case and what it says about capital punishment in the country, and the flaws in its implementation

Executing the Insane: The Case of Scott Panetti

Audio

California's Death Penalty Declared Unconstitutional
Unlike many recent death penalty rulings, the decision wasn't focused on the method of execution, but on the fact that executions in California are so rarely carried out. The last was in 2006.

Death Penalty Expert On Why Lethal Injection Is So Problematic
In the wake of Arizona's botched execution, Steve Inskeep talks with Amherst professor Austin Sarat, author of the recent book Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America's Death Penalty.

Web Resource