35. Witnessing a Federal Execution with Sarah Lehman

Since 1963, 16 people have been sentenced to death and executed by the United States Federal Government. All 16 of those inmates were put to death at the U.S. Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. In 2019, The U.S. Government announced a moratorium on federal executions would end for the first in 17 years. As a result, 13 death row prisoners received lethal injection between July of 2020 and January of 2021. Sarah Lehman, a broadcast journalist in Terre Haute, witnessed and reported on 5 of those executions. In this episode Mallory does a one-on-one interview about the process of reporting on a rare event like this and the impact it has on the media covering these cases. SOURCES: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/committees/death_penalty_representation/project_press/2020/fall-2020/federal-government-executes-seven-in-three-months/ https://www.tribstar.com/news/u-s-bureau-of-prisons-dedicates-new-terre-haute-penitentiary/article_4564066b-3d3e-5e33-8863-274181479d6b.html https://www.bop.gov/locations/institutions/tha/index.jsp https://www.news-gazette.com/news/in-terre-haute-prison-s-death-row-talk-of-the-town/article_1780af0b-6a3d-5754-90bc-0554a01ed858.html https://fox59.com/news/national-world/ap-us-news/ap-fuller-picture-emerges-of-the-13-federal-executions-at-the-end-of-trumps-presidency/