Killing Death Row: 2. How to Kill the Killers

Gangster

BBC

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 October 2023

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Welcome to the Allan Polunsky unit in Huntsville, Texas, where Livvy Haydock meets a murderer with three weeks to live. This killer will die by lethal injection; we talk to the inventor of that jab, and learn how it was hailed by some as a humane solution for a modern death penalty. Join Livvy Haydock as she takes us deep into Death Row in the USA. While support for the Death Penalty in the US remains at over 50 per cent, there’s been a steady decline in the number of executions – from the modern era peak of 98 in 1999 to just 20 in 2023 so far. Only a handful of states actually carry out the killings. It’s even become more difficult for executioners to get hold of the drugs used in lethal injections, which is what led Livvy Haydock to a surreal story about a man in Acton, West London, who was supplying these lethal drugs to state penitentiaries in the US, and on to the macabre world of Death Row – and the people who live, work, and die on it. Whether it’s the bizarre hunt for new lethal injection supplies, or the tip of the glasses that mark an executioner’s signal, Livvy goes right behind the scenes into the chamber itself to examine the pressures on the system that have left just 5 US states actively carrying out executions this year and around 2,400 Death Row prisoners in limbo. We’ll hear from an inmate waiting to die, and one saved at the last moment. We’ll chat to the wardens who make it happen, and the campaigners who want to stop it. And throughout it all, we’ll discover the possible future for Death Row in the only western democracy still carrying out capital punishment. Presenter: Livvy Haydock Series producer: Anna Meisel Sounds design and mix: Richard Hannaford Editor: Clare Fordham Production coordinator: Janet Staples

Transcript

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0:22.0	Yeah, match of the day top 10. Listen only on BBC sounds
0:26.4	BBC sounds music radio podcasts. You're about to listen to ganks to presents killing death row
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0:49.8	How are you feeling? I'm nervous. Yeah, I'm yeah, I feel quite stressed out really
0:55.1	It's because it's such a big deal. I don't want to scare him. I don't want to make him feel worse
1:00.5	I've never been to interview an inmate inside prison. I really yeah, see I have but not someone who's you know waiting on their death date
1:12.6	In 2011 I heard a story on the radio and that's why aren't driving through Texas now
1:20.1	The story was about a shortage of drugs for us executions
1:24.4	It was a horrible problem. I mean it was like dealing with a dope dealer a shortage so bad that America was forced to find drugs from bizarre places
1:33.8	Little guy operating out of a driving school in actin in West London was surprised drugs to execute convicts and murderers in
1:42.0	Penitentiaries in the US
1:43.8	This tale reveals how the mechanics of killing someone could be causing the US death penalty more problems than campaigns to get it banned
1:53.3	In recent decades, there have been fewer executions overall in
1:58.8	1999 there were 98 in
2:02.0	2023 so far, they have only been 20
2:06.2	Only a handful of states actually carry them out at all a lack of drugs is only part of the story
2:12.6	I want to understand how lethal injection became the preferred method of execution and what history tells us about death rose
2:22.1	Future, but first I want to get inside death row itself
	...

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