Prominent South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh was recently found guilty of the murders of his wife and son—but despite the severity of the crimes, the prosecution declined to pursue the death penalty in his case.

In this episode, Emma speaks with journalist George Hale about his experience covering the most recent federal executions in Terre Haute, Indiana for an intimate look at the execution process. She also sits down with DU law professor Sam Kamin to examine the history of the death penalty and the racial and class disparities in how it is handed out.

Show Notes:

George Hale is a radio reporter at WFIU, the NPR member station covering federal death row. He was part of a team of public media journalists who covered 13 executions at a federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, in the final six months of then-President Donald Trump’s administration. Their reporting earned several awards including a regional Murrow. Hale is also the host and lead reporter of “Rush To Kill,” an investigative podcast about the federal death penalty, coming this spring. 

Sam Kamin joined the faculty at the Sturm College of Law in 1999. Professor Kamin’s research interests include criminal procedure, death penalty jurisprudence, federal courts, and constitutional remedies. He is a co-author of West Publishing’s Investigative Criminal Procedure: A Contemporary Approach and Cases and Materials on the Death Penalty and has published scholarly articles in the Virginia Law Review, the Indiana Law Journal, the Journal of Constitutional Law, and Law and Contemporary Problems among many others. He has also become one of the nation’s leading experts on the regulation of marijuana; in 2012 he was appointed to Governor John Hickenlooper’s Task Force to Implement Amendment 64 and the ACLU of California’s blue ribbon panel to study marijuana legalization.