---
title: "Toobin on America's Ambivalence Toward the Death Penalty"
description: 'Jeffrey Toobin, writing in The New Yorker, used the current scramble among states to procure the drugs for lethal injections as a paradigm of the much…'
canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/toobin-on-americas-ambivalence-toward-the-death-penalty'
section: news
date: '2013-12-20T14:47:19-05:00'
updated: '2025-03-14T14:36:48-04:00'
source: 'Death Penalty Information Center'
---

! **Jeffrey Toobin**, writing in *The New Yorker*, used the current scramble among states to procure the drugs for lethal injections as a paradigm of the much longer effort to make the death penalty palatable to the American public. "The story of the death penalty in this country," he wrote, "illustrates a characteristically American faith in a technological solution to any problem." However, Toobin concluded, technology can not cover up the broader problems of capital punishment: "The oxymoronic quest for humane executions only accentuates the absurdity of allowing the death penalty in a civilized society." He ended highlighting the declining public support for the death penalty, as well as the drop in executions and death sentences across the country.

(J. Toobin, "[Cruel and Unusual](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/cruel-and-unusual)," The New Yorker, December 23, 2013). See [**Lethal Injection**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/lethal-injection) and [**History of Death Penalty**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?did=199&scid=15). For more information about the declining use of the death penalty, see DPIC's [**Year End Report**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/research/analysis/reports/year-end-reports/the-death-penalty-in-2013-year-end-report).