A new book, Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty, describes the history of flawed executions in the U.S. from 1890 to 2010. During that period, 8,776 people were executed and 276 of those executions went wrong in some way. Of all the methods used, lethal injection had the highest rate of botched executions—about 7%. Austin Sarat, the author of the book and a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College, described the evolution of new methods of execution: “With each development in the technology of execution, the same promises have been made, that each new technology was safe, reliable, effective and humane. Those claims have not generally been fulfilled.” In an interview, Sarat was asked how the recent botched execution of Clayton Lockett might affect the public discussion on the death penalty. He replied, “This execution has happened at a time of national reconsideration of capital punishment. The death penalty is really declining. I’m tempted to say it’s dying in the United States. Public support is down, the number of death sentences over the last decade or so has been cut by two thirds, the number of executions is down by about 50 percent. More and more, Americans are focusing on the practical realities and worrying that while the death penalty might in some abstract way satisfy some people, when you look at how it’s actually administered, maybe it’s not worth the cost.”

(G. Miller, “America’s Long and Gruesome History of Botched Executions,” Wired, May 12, 2014; A. Sarat, “Gruesome Spectacles: Botched Executions and America’s Death Penalty” (Stanford Univ. Press 2014)). See Books and Botched Executions.

Citation Guide