Hi, it’s Josh Sanburn, producer for More To The Story.
About a decade ago, I reported on executions around the US. This was a time when states were beginning to encounter problems obtaining the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections. Activists opposed to capital punishment were pressuring pharmaceutical companies to stop the sale of common lethal injection drugs to states. This led to an era of experimentation with different drug combinations and even different methods.
One execution I reported on back then was that of Clayton Lockett, who died by lethal injection in Oklahoma in 2014. His attorneys told me and other reporters after his death that Lockett groaned and writhed on the execution table before ultimately dying of a heart attack 43 minutes after first being sedated. This was not how lethal injections were supposed to be carried out. They’d been hailed as a more humane way of executing those on death row than a firing squad or the electric chair. But in a horrific twist, the apparent pain that inmates were experiencing seemed worse. At the time, Lockett’s execution was the latest in a series of lethal injections that appeared botched.
Today, executions in the US are beginning to tick up. But the problems the country has in attempting to mete out capital punishment are still with us. Few people get to witness these executions. But one man has seen more of them than almost anyone. The Reverend Jeff Hood is an ordained Baptist minister, an Old Catholic Church priest, a racial justice activist, and something of a go-to spiritual adviser for many currently on death row. He often tells people that his job is to become death row inmates’ best friend “so that their best friend will be with them when they’re executed.” On the day of the execution, he goes inside the chamber for the final moments of people’s lives. And he has seen the same kind of problematic executions that started occurring a decade ago. But this new era of capital punishment includes a new method: nitrogen hypoxia. It’s a way of death that requires inmates to wear a face mask that forces them to breathe in deadly nitrogen. Hood says he’s seen horrifically violent reactions from inmates who are killed with the method.
“There was a certain level of violence that people were accustomed to in carrying out these executions,” Hood tells More To The Story’s Al Letson. “It's violent to strap someone down, you know, to run an IV and kill them. This is a whole ’nother level of violence. And it speaks to the fact that as a society, we have moved in a more violent direction.”
Trust me when I tell you we’ve never had a guest on More To The Story like Hood. While much of the conversation is urgent and serious, he doesn’t take himself seriously. He’s funny, unpredictable, and one of the most colorful characters you’ll hear anywhere. I hope you’ll listen.
—Josh Sanburn
