The Myth of Forever Sleep:

A new book examines why states continue to sell the American people on the utility of lethal injection—despite its well-documented, monstrous failings.

In recent years, lethal injection has repeatedly provoked public outcry—sometimes even from people who do not, in principle, oppose the death penalty. International pharmaceutical companies, having cottoned to the use of their products in lethal-injection regimes, have almost unanimously refused to sell to death-penalty states, forcing carceral authorities to seek out alternative, untested regimes, sometimes leading to high-profile cases of botched executions. Some states have even reverted to other, no-less-barbaric forms of execution while they continue to tinker with other lethal injection options.

Carol Steiker, one of the foremost legal experts on the death penalty, sat down with Corinna Lain to discuss what Lain learned in the course of writing Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection, and what she perceives at the current status of the legal and cultural fight to end the use of lethal injection for good.

Read the full interview here.