The Execution | FRONTLINE | PBS | Clifford Boggess | VHS

The Story: Alan Austin's Notebook on The Execution

In 1995, we set out to do a story about Capital Punishment -- a macro-examination of an execution's effect on all who take part in it or have a stake in it. What happens to the warden and the guards who feed and tend the man only to send him off to die? What happens to the chaplain whose job is to minister to terrified people that the chaplain's own institution is killing? To the relatives of the man's victims -- do they gain some comfort or "closure" by the death of the murderer? To the relatives of the murderer -- is their grief or agony a fair price to pay for it all? Above all, we would get to know the condemned man, learn everything we could about him and his crimes, and record what happens to him as he sees his death approaching. Most Americans have made it clear that they favor the Death Penalty. But support or opposition to it seems based largely on abstract arguments and slogans about crime and punishment. What if the whole process were to be given human faces at close range? Might it have an affect on our opinions about Capital Punishment?

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