The Battle for Death Penalty Transparency

Americans may shudder at the barbarity depicted in videos showing public executions by the governments of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and China, but the fact remains that alone among all Western countries, the United States is a death penalty country.

Though the death penalty is legal in the majority of American states, only a handful of them actually carry out executions, numbering in the few dozens annually. Part of the reason the American public maintains a steadfast support of its government killing convicted murderers is due to the cloak of secrecy covering executions and that the most common form of execution, lethal injection, is sold to the public as a medical procedure, akin to putting a sick animal to sleep.

But a series of botched executions in 2014 have exposed a problem largely unknown to the American public: The drugs used for lethal injections are experimental, untested, and proving to be ineffective at killing prisoners without excruciating pain.

About 5.45 minutes.

Produced by Anthony L. Fisher.

Camera by Josh Swain and Fisher. Graphics by Jason Keisling. Additional assistance by Robert Mariani.

Music: "FOUR YEARS EXACTLY" by Jared C. Balogh (http://www.alteredstateofmine.net)

Subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel to receive automatic notifications when new videos go live. And go to http://reason.com/reasontv/2015/03/06/death-penalty-transparency for downloadable versions of this video, full text, and links to related resources.