Hey there, just a quick note, this episode contains descriptions of violent crimes and death row executions.

This is In Conversation from Apple News. I'm Shemitabasu. Today, what the death penalty in America really looks like.

At the end of President Trump's first term, his administration resumed federal executions after a 17-year pause, carrying out 13 executions in just six months.

At the time, Elizabeth Brunig was a reporter at the New York Times writing about the death penalty.

Capital punishment has interested me for a while.

There's nothing else really like it in society where we kill fully healthy civilians.

And I felt like I couldn't really justify my feelings

on it either way or really even understand my feelings on it unless I saw it for myself.

In 2020, Elizabeth decided to volunteer as a media witness to a federal execution in Indiana

and write about what she saw. She continued to

cover the issue as a staff writer at the Atlantic, where she wrote about witnessing five

executions over the course of five years, including two failed attempts. She grew close to several

inmates on death row and their families. And Elizabeth says that all of this, plus her own experience

grappling with justice after the murder of her sister-in-law in 2016, has reshaped how she

thinks about the death penalty. My initial stance had been, even if someone is the worst person in the

world, it's wrong to execute them. But what I found was these people are not necessarily the worst person in the world, it's wrong to execute them. But what I found was these

people are not necessarily the worst people in the world. There are people who've done terrible things.

But in many, many cases, these are people who have radically changed over the years that they

have been incarcerated. And I came away much more disturbed

by capital punishment than I had been to begin with. Elizabeth's peace for the Atlantic

inside America's death chambers explores the ethical tension between revenge, mercy, and redemption.

I started by asking her to describe that first execution she witnessed back in 2020

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