Let the Lord Sort Them by Maurice Chammah

Of Texas, Fehrenbach writes,“Its almost theatrical codes and courtesies, its incipient feudalism, its touch independence and determined self-reliance, its-exaggerated as it seemed to more crowded cultures-individual self-importance and its tribal territoriality.” Since 1982, Texas has executed over five hundred people while other states continue to advocate for humane forms of retribution. You mention this mentality was defined by historian T. against' framing.ĮC: In capturing the rise and fall of the death penalty, you focus on Texas and its ingrained frontier mentality. And I felt it would be valuable for people to break out of the simple 'for vs. Eventually, I'd done enough reporting that I felt I could tell this bigger story but also pick the individual people who I thought could convey the larger themes to readers. So, as I learned how to be a journalist, I was continually drawn to writing about death penalty cases, and because of that oral history research, I knew that every case had all these different participants who weren't always approached by reporters. But at the same time, I was finding plenty of journalism - especially in Texas Monthly and The Texas Observer, and of course national publications like The New Yorker and The Atlantic - that tried to humanize various areas of public policy by telling very specific, concrete stories. It was always a kind of high school debate topic: for or against. It seemed like a lot of what I read discussed the death penalty in big, abstract terms. I drove throughout Texas and conducted these interviews, and then spent hours and hours transcribing them, and as I did so, I was constantly looking up the cases and legal issues people were talking about. Maurice Chammah: Before I got into journalism, I worked for a small non-profit called the Texas After Violence Project, which has been building an archive of personal stories of people who had been affected by murder and the death penalty, especially family members on both sides of these cases. What inspired you to write about the death penalty from those whose experiences “illustrate the system’s day-to-day reality?” I’ve heard the death penalty called everything from a grotesque aberration to a moral obligation, but I’ve never heard from those directly transformed and affected by it. Yet, last year five states and the federal government carried out seventeen executions. Public opinion polls show that support for the death penalty is in decline. death penalty through the experiences of real people directly affected by this public policy. Emily Collins: Let the Lord Sort Them charts the history of the U.S.

Let the Lord Sort Them by Maurice Chammah