Corinna Barrett Lain — Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection - with Mark Stern

In the popular imagination, lethal injection is a slight pinch and a swift nodding off to forever-sleep. It is performed by well-qualified medical professionals. It is regulated and carefully conducted. And it usually provides a "humane" death. In reality, however, not one of those things is true.Secrets of the Killing State pulls back the curtain on this clandestine punishment practice, presenting a view of lethal injection that states have worked hard to hide. Botched executions are a part of this story, but they are just the tip of the iceberg. For all the suffering that we see, there is also suffering that we don't see. Indeed, the story told here is even bigger than the executions themselves, for behind the scenes is where it unfolds. Fake science, torturous drugs, inept executioners, prison problems, and decades of state secrecy have created an execution method hard-wired to go wrong in countless ways.The story of lethal injection is a story of gross incompetence, law breaking, torturous deaths, and a stunning indifference to the way in which human beings die at the hands of the state. These are the secrets of the killing state--all that we know from litigation files, scientific studies, investigative journalism, autopsy reports, interviews, and scholarship across a number of fields. Death penalty expert Corinna Barrett Lain uses this groundbreaking journey into the dark reality of lethal injection to shine a light on the American death penalty more broadly and show that the state at its most powerful moment is also the state at its worst.We are now over 45 years into the lethal injection era, and most Americans still have no idea what states are doing in their name. It's time they found out.PURCHASE BOOK HERE: https://politics-prose.com/book/9781479832965?ic_referral=hw7wZTS-WulE9Y1YrooMgIBd8hynC9_z83xVUBeJGFcwMzeINf138Wgwuj6WKOlHUVZCJ47mRvYINL6I-fzgNRY05Qv_wnrHsYdiVEYH_saajSkvxnuqbyDx6xg95DjCYTNiGwCorinna Barrett Lain is S. D. Roberts & Sandra Moore Professor of Law at University of Richmond School of Law.Lain is in conversation with Mark Joseph Stern, a senior writer covering courts and the law for Slate and a regular MSNBC contributor. Based in Washington, D.C., he has covered the U.S. Supreme Court, federal appellate and district courts, and state and local courts since 2013. Mark holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and is a member of the Maryland Bar. He is the author of The Roberts Court Arrives, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. *recorded 5/2/2025