Demystifying the Death Penalty

The mystery of death is eternal and existential. But the reality of the death penalty is deliberately kept hidden from public view. Governments have blocked the public from answering key questions – What happens during executions? What drugs are used in lethal injections?

Now journalists are pushing back. For the first time, the constitutionality of the death penalty is being challenged on First Amendment grounds. Because the public has a right to know what happens when the state kills in its name.

First posted March 6, 2015.