It Could Happen Here - The Shady Business of Lethal Injection: The Quality of Mercy

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

In the conclusion of this three-part series on lethal injection, Steve Monacelli and Dr. Michael Phillips interview Rais Bhuiyan, a Muslim who was shot and blinded in one eye by a white supremacist on a killing spree in Dallas following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Bhuiyan explains why he campaigned to prevent the execution of his attacker, Mark Stroman. His efforts led European companies that produce lethal chemicals to stop selling them for executions in states like Texas. The episode then looks at how states have evaded such bans by buying the drugs on the black market. Finally, we’ll hear from a from a priest, the Rev. Jeff Hood, who has held the hands of more than 10 condemned prisoners and witnessed their prolonged, tortured deaths. The series ends with a discussion of the uncertain future of the death penalty in this country. Sources: Breanna Ehrlich, “The Last Face Death Row Inmates See,” Rolling Stone, March 29, 2025 (https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/death-row-reverend-jeff-hood-1235305460/) Anand Giridharadas, The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2014.)  Corinna Barrett Lain, Secrets of the Killing State: The Untold Story of Lethal Injection (New York: New York University Press, 2025.)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airlines. The most Texas story ever. Listen to Business History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, here we go again.

We'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends, like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg, to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up.

Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season, ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. Five, six white people. Pushed me in the car.

Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it. She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown staying. the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. A warning. This episode includes violent content, which some listeners might find disturbing.

I'm Michael Phillips, an historian and the author of a history of racism in Dallas called White Metropolis, and the co-author, with longtime journalist Betsy Freeoff, of the history of eugenics in Texas called purifying knife. And I'm Stephen Montchelli. I'm an investigative journalist in Dallas who specializes in political extremism and the far right. And I report for places like the Texas Observer, the Bartmire, and more. Like millions across the United States, Mark Anthony Stroman, was startled by the events then unfolded on the terrible morning of September 11, 2001. The disbelief that greeted that terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center of the Pentagon can be heard on the first announcement of the tragedy on a Dallas

Talk radio station, WBAP. All right, thank you, our 7.51, nine minutes before 8 o'clock at News Talk 820. WBAP here on the Tuesday morning. And the reason I am hesitating here, there's a word of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center

in downtown Manhattan. And the World Trade, a plane actually crashing into the side of the World Trade. Center. We're going to have details for you on that from ABC News and just a couple of moments. Stroman later wrote that September 11th filled him with a great sense of rage, hatred, loss, bitterness, and utter degradation. He blamed Arabs and Muslims as a group for the events that day and wanted, quote, those Arabs to feel the same sense of insecurity about their immediate

surroundings. I wanted to feel the same sense of vulnerability and uncertainty on American soil. Stroman, a Dallas resident, had already served two prison terms during which he had joined the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang. Addicted to meth and sporting neo-Nazi tattoos, he began cruising Dallas in his 1972 Chevy Suburban, hunting for, quote-unquote, Arabs. As he later admitted, he wasn't entirely sure what an Arab looked like, but nevertheless, he stalked people with, quote, shawls on their faces. Stroman launched his crusade by running cars into ditches if he suspected the vehicles were driven by Muslims. He escalated his campaign of terror on September 17, 2001. He fatally shot Wakar Hassan, a 46-year-old Pakistani immigrant

as the clerk grilled a hamburger and mom's grocery in Dallas. A few days later, Stroman found his next victim, a former pilot for Bangladesh's Air Force named Race Bouillon. Mr. Bujan, who has experienced robberies prior to his encounter with Stroman, told us what happened that day. September 21st, 2001, it was Friday around June. A customer walked in wearing bandana, sunglasses, baseball cap, and holding a double barrel, a solid double barrel shotgun on his right side. And from the previous robbery experience, I thought you'd be in the robbery. So I put all the money on the counter and offered in the cash as soon as he walked in.

And I said, sir, here is all the money. Take it. But please do not shoot me. Basically, I begged for my life. And he is gayest and then he mumbled the question, what are you from? Before I could say anything more than, excuse me, he pulled the trigger. from point, blank rent. I felt it first, like a million bees

were stinging my friends, and I looked down and saw blood-pouring like an open faucet from the right side of my head. And I remember screaming mom up my voice, and I looked down saw blood pouring like an open faucet from the right side of my head. And then I look left, I saw the gunman still.

standing pointing to the gun directly at my face. And I realized that if I do not, you know, do something to show that I'm dying, he might shoot me again. So I fell to the floor and he finally left a few seconds. Beyond survived the attack, but he was blinded in his right eye. He would endure not only multiple painful surgeries, but also the unique financial horrors of the American health care system. Meanwhile, Stroman was not done terrorizing the Dallas area Muslim community. On October 4th, the shooting spree came to an end when the white supremacist pulled up to a shell station in Mesquite at about 6.45 in the morning and ordered the clerk, 49-year-old Vasudev Patel, a Hindu immigrant from India, to hand over all the money from the cash register.

Patel reached under the counter for a 22-caliber pistol, and seeing the gun, Stroman fired his weapon. The bullet struck Patel in his chest and killed him. A security camera captured the scene, and Dallas police arrested Stroman the next day. At Stroman's home, investigators found a semi-automatic rifle, an Uzi knockoff, a 44 magnum, and a 45 cult. They also found evidence that Stroman planned to attack a mosque in a nearby suburb. The jury found Stroman guilty of capital murder in April 5, 2002, and sentenced him to die. by lethal injection. The story then took an unexpected turn. During a 2009 pilgrimage to Mecca, Bouillon said he realized that simply forgiving his assailant would not be enough. He believed he had a

moral obligation to do all they could to prevent Stroman's death. Boi Ann filed a lawsuit attempting to halt Stroman's execution. Despite of Bouillon's best effort, the suit was rejected by state and federal courts, and Stroman died by lethal injection July 20th, 2011. Beyond's campaign of mercy, however, made a major impact on capital punishment in the United States. He effectively shamed European drug companies into banning the use of the products used in the lethal injection that killed Stroman. In turn, some states like Texas decided to start buying lethal drugs illegally. In this final episode on the history of the lethal injection in the United States, Beyond will tell us about his campaign against capital punishment

and its impact. We'll also speak to a priest, the Reverend Jeff Hood, who has accompanied by the time of this interview, 10 men to their executions. He will also tell us why he has devoted himself to showing love to people so despised and also address the future of the death penalty in the United States. After being blinded in a hate crime, race beyond struggled through numerous traumas. He told us that after getting shot at the convenience story where he worked, he ran to a barbershop next door. There, he had the first sight of his injuries.

I caught myself in the mirror. And the image reflected back was like something like a horror movie. And on my way to the hospital, I felt my eyes were closing. I felt that my time was up. And, you know, while I was reciting from the Holy Quran and asking God for mercy and forgiveness and giving me a second chance. I also begged him to, you know, to send my life and give me a chance to live. And I promised God that if you give me the chance to live, I would help others.

In the emergency room, doctors put Beyond on life support. For a time, his condition was touch and go. Beyond, a young immigrant living on his salary as a convenience store clerk, said that when he next opened his eyes and doctors told him he had survived, he cried tears of joy. So my eyes were full of tears, not from the pain, but from the joy of still being alive. But that joy did not last long because the hospital where I was taken was private and expensive and I had no health insurance at that time. So they discharged me within a couple of hours and told me to arrange follow-up medical treatments on my own.

So, you know, the first part of my American nightmare was being shot in the face after 9-11 and second part began when I was kicked up from the hospital. So as a result of this shooting, I, you know, underwent several eye surgeries. Unfortunately, though I lost the machine in one eye, I still carry more than three dozen shotgun pallets in my face. And my father suffered a stroke when he heard what happened to me, but luckily he survived. I lost my fiancé, but gained more than $60,000 in medical bills. As Stroman languished on Texas death row, Bouillon began picking up the pieces.

I moved on, rebuilding my life. I worked in a restaurant and went back to school. And slowly I was, you know, climbing the letter and getting better in my own, you know, life journey. And in 2009, I went to Macca for pilgrimage, my mother. And it was in NECA, I deeply realized that

though I forgave my attacker Marks Truman, it was not an hour. I felt that, you know, by executing Mark, we would simply lose a human life with the dealing with the root cause. I strongly believe that if he was given a chance, he might be able to become a better human being. And I began to see him as a human being like me, not just simply a killer. I saw him as a victim tour. And I deeply felt for him. And I remember my promise on my death there, that if I get a chance to live, I would help others. And I felt that I need to start with him first to give my promise. So I returned from Mecca with a very changed heart with a clarity. And then you found purpose. And I launched a campaign to try and save my attack as life from Texas death. We'll pick up the story of Beyond's campaign to spare Stroman's life, and how his efforts changed the history of the American death penalty after a word from our sponsors.

I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business.

The most Texas story ever. There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business genius.

along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked. Like Thomas Edison and the Electives Chess. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here we go. Hey, I'm Cal Penn. And on my new podcast, Here We Go Again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies.

But I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash like in 08? Is non-monogamy back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lili Sussie. Singh and Bill Nye.

When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told. And that's a half-truth is a whole lie. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved, until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her.

From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

May 24th, 1990, a pipe bomb explodes in the front seat of environmental activist Judy Barry's car. I knew it was a bomb the second that it exploded. I felt it ripped through me with just a force more powerful

and terrible than anything than I could describe. In season two of Ripcurrent, we ask who tried to kill Judy Berry and why? She received death threats before the bombing. She received more threats after the bombing. The man and woman who were heard

had planned to lead a summer of militant protest against logging practices in Northern California. They were climbing trees and they were sabotaging logging equipment in the woods. The timber industry, I mean, it was the number one industry in the area, but more that it was the culture, it was the way of life.

I think that this is a deliberate attempt to sabotage our movement. Episodes of Rip Current Season 2 are available now. Listen on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Dr. Rick Halperin began teaching human rights courses at Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1990, where he now heads one of only nine human rights programs at universities in the country. He has also chaired Amnesty International's Board of Directors three times, and since 1972 has been an anti-death penalty activist. Halperin became famous on Texas death row as a result of his efforts.

And after Stroman was informed of his July 20th, 2011 execution date, the condemned man wrote a letter to Halperin asking for help in making final arrangements, such as locating an affordable undertaker. By coincidence, shortly after Stroman reached out to Halperin, the professor received a surprised visitor to his office. The stranger was Stroman's victim, Race Bouillon. Bionn, who had recently become an American citizen, hoped Halperin could help find a creative and effective way to fulfill the promise he had made to God when

he thought he was dying. He began his campaign to save Stroman's life. Biyan, Halperin, and another human rights activist, Hadi Jawad, carried their efforts from Dallas to the state capital in Austin and as far as the European Parliament. A weak point in the American death penalty machinery was its reliance on companies that provided the lethal injection chemicals. In 2011, Italy, an anti-death penalty nation, successfully pressured the Illinois company Hospira to stop selling sodium theopentol, the muscle relaxant used in the three-drug lethal injection protocol used in Texas since the early 1980s. That same year,

reprieve, a British human rights nonprofit, arranged for beyond to travel to Europe to meet face-to-face with executives at the corporate headquarters of the Danish pharmaceutical company Lundbeck. Aware that the meeting would put them in the international spotlight, Lundbeck, three days prior, announced that they would stop shipping the sedative nimbutol,

which was being used as a substitute for sodium theopentol to American prison systems. But Jan described his conversation with the Lundbeck company in an interview with us. After one hour of great conversation, they agreed to write a letter

to the governor of Texas asking him not to use their product to kill the man being. The state of Texas, however, was unwilling to grant a crime victim his fervent wish. Even though Texas politicians repeatedly claim they execute murderers to bring the victim's closure, Bouillon said he was denied this by the Texas Board of Paroles and pardons, and then Governor Rick Perry. I reached out to the prison system and asking for a mediation dialogue. But unfortunately, you know, they turned down my request multiple times. And the reason they showed was it would re-victimized me.

So basically, a mediation dialogue I saw would be helpful for me to find closure, to find a lot of answers. But it was, for them, it would be a re-victimization process for me. So they rejected my request multiple crimes. And it really made me sad that when they needed me to testify in the court the conviction to get the death penalty, I was a good victim. But then when I tried to exercise my right as a victim to have a mediation dialogue, I became a bad victim because I asked for my rights.

In his final hour, Stroman spoke directly to his surviving victim. I had the opportunity to talk to him off the phone before he was executed. And it was the day of his execution where he put my name as one of the people he would be able to talk. So I was lucky enough to talk to him. And when he came on the phone, I was about to go to the court to give a last fight to, you know, set the execution. So I was thinking, what would I say to a human being who is about to be executed in a couple of hours? And I'm going to go to a court to give a last fight to see if he could save him. So I was very emotional when he came on the phone.

I told him that, Mark, you know for sure that I never hated you. I forgave you. And I'm doing my best to, you know, save you. your life, you know, through this court hearing. And he said that ways I never expected that from you. And I love you, bro. And that brought tears into my eyes that it's the same human being who shocked me for no reasons other than having hate and by disease are. And now 10 years later, he saw me, he could see me as his brother. And he said, he loved me. Why he could see me his brother 10 years ago, and why he could say the same thing, 10 years ago.

So, you know, at least it helped me to find colder a little bit. It helped me to move forward. At least I had the chat to talk to my attacker. And then give me a lot of hope that people can change. The execution itself, however, left beyond cold. Well, definitely this execution, it was not for the victims. because the victims and the victims family members requested and also fought for clemency. We went ahead and requested the governor of Texas, the Board of Protestants and Paroles

that do not execute him in our names, you know, show mercy. Mark Stroman died as scheduled on July 20, 2011. And though Beyond and Halperin failed to stop it, they had helped start an international movement to thwart the ability of states to carry out. such lethal injections. As Professor Corrine Elaine revealed in her book, Secrets of the Killing State, after Hospira stopped producing sodium theopentol, the vacuum was filled by a fly-by-night company called Dream Pharma. The drug distributor, quote, turned out to be two desks at a filing cabinet hidden in the back of a London driving school, as Lane wrote. Once this operation was

exposed, Great Britain banned sodium theopentol sales to the United States. By December 2011, The entire European Union had tightened export controls on any chemicals that could potentially be used in executions. The new expanded EU ban made life much more difficult for would-be executioners in the United States. In 2012, when the state of Missouri announced it would use the drug pro-Pufal as an anesthetic in its executions, the EU said it would cut off exports to that drug, which is used for surgeries in the United States about 50 million times a year. Combined these moves created a lethal injection drug shortage that changed how executions took place. In 2012, Texas moved then to a single drug protocol using penobarbital alone, rather than the old three-drug cocktail made out of thin air by Oklahoma coroner Stephen Coleman back in the 1970s.

Autopsies reveal that prisoners executed with this single drug protocol die from pulmonary edema, a condition in which the lungs fill with fluid. medical experts believe prisoners suffer intense chest pain as they suffocate even if they appear fully unconscious. Execution witnesses also say they've seen prisoners' eyes pop open, their eyes fill with tears, has seen them pull against restraints, and have heard them groan and clasped their jaws during such executions. As the drugs needed to carry out lethal injections become harder to find, states have to rely on shady tactics so they can keep on killing. Officials have lied to pharmaceutical companies that are buying jugs,

to provide medical care for prisoners that they later use in the death chamber. Death penalty states have violated federal laws. They have illegally swapped these drugs across state line, or they bought them on the black market or the legally marginal so-called gray market. Professor Lane describes the shading lengths the state of Ohio went to in order to buy these drugs. The state took $15,000 in cash in a suitcase. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. you know, and chartered a private plane to fly over to Washington, where they did an under-the-table

deal for drugs with this little pharmacy. You know, you need a prescription for these drugs. And so here's a pharmacy that for $15,000 is willing to sell drugs under the table. And allegedly, in a Walmart parking lot. To cope with the shrinking supply, states have made illegal purchases overseas. Like other states, Texas has tried to cert. circumvent tightening restrictions by purchasing death penalty supplies from loosely regulated compounding pharmacies, and some of them have been here in the States. In 2018, it was revealed that Texas repeatedly bought drugs from the Green Park Compounding Pharmacy in Houston, which is a company that

had been fined 48 times by federal regulators for safety violations, including providing the wrong medication to children who were subsequently hospitalized. The number of agonizingly prolonged executions in Texas suggest that the drugs the state buys are often out of date or impure. Finding out where the lethal drugs are coming from is becoming increasingly difficult. A number of states have passed laws may get illegal to report on who carries out the execution, what companies supply the drugs, or how these drugs were purchased. In any case, the difficulty in getting execution drugs has led to a decline in the death penalty across the nation. At the time of the landmark

1972, Ferman v. Georgia case that temporarily halted executions in the United States, 40 states had the death penalty. Currently, only 27 due. In 2024, four states alone, Alabama, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas carried out 76 percent of the executions that unfolded in the United States. Some of the remaining states with the death penalty on the books have responded to the short of lethal drugs by authorizing the use of the firing squad and killing prisoners with nitrogen

gas hypoxia, which suffocates them by forcing them to breathe pure nitrogen. After another ad break, you'll hear from a priest who has witnessed executions in 10 different states, including death by nitrous hypoxia, and we'll end this three-part series by discussing the future of the death penalty. I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history.

And some of the worst people, horrible ideas, and destructive companies in the history of business. Having a genius idea without a need for it is nothing. It's like not having it at all. It's a very simple, elegant lesson. Make something people want. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline business. The most Texas story ever.

There's a lot of mavericks in that story. We're going to have mavericks on the show. We're going to have plenty of robber barons. So many robber barons. And you know what? They're not all bad. And we'll talk about some of the classic great moments of famous business geniuses, along with some of the darker moments that often get overlooked.

like Thomas Edison and the electric chair. Listen to business history on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here we go. Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, Here We Go again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? You may know me as the second hottest actor from the Harold and Kumar movies, but I'm also an author, a White House staffer, and, as of like 15 seconds ago, a podcast host. Along the way, I've made some friends who are experts in science, politics, and pop culture. And each week, one of them will be joining me to answer my burning questions. Like, are we heading towards another financial crash like in 08? Is non-monogamy

back in style? And how come there's never a gate ready for your flight when it lands like two minutes early? We've got guests like Pete Buttigieg, Stacey Abrams, Lili Singh, and Bill Nye. When you start weaponizing outer space, things can potentially go really wrong. Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now, because it is. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All I know is what I've been told, and that's a half-truth is a whole lot. For almost a decade, the murder of an 18-year-old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

I'm telling you, we know Quincy Kilder, we know. A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national TV. Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran. My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find. I did not know her and I did not kill her, or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y'all said. They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured gas on her.

From Lava for Good, this is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people in small towns. Listen to Graves County in the Bone Valley feed on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season at free, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Jonathan Goldstein,

and on the new season of heavyweight, I help a centenarian mend a broken heart. How can a 101-year-old woman fall in love again? And I help a man atone for an armed, robbery he committed at 14 years old. And so I pointed the gun at him and said, this isn't a joke. And he got down. And I remember feeling kind of a surge of like, okay, this is power. Plus, my old friend Gregor and his brother tried to solve my problems through hypnotism. We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time.

Being more able to look people in the eye. Not always hide behind a microphone. Listen to Heavyweight on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Born in the South Atlanta neighborhood in Georgia, Jeff Hood grew up in a religiously conservative home and was ordained as a Southern Baptist minister when he was only 22. His worldview, however, was shaken when he attended to his religious mentor who was dying of lung cancer. Before he passed away, the 75-year-old confessed to Hood, quote,

I'm gay, and I've always been. Hood described this moment as earth-shattering, and his religious views transformed dramatically from what he later called his backwards thinking. When Hood moved to Dallas in the early 2010s, he became well known in his new home, as he fought to make local churches more inclusive of the LGBTQ plus community, and he got arrested along with other clergy outside of the White House in 2014 when he was protesting President Barack Obama's aggressive campaign to deport migrants. On July 7, 2016, Hood led a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Dallas,

during which a sniper opened fire and targeted police officers. Micah X. Johnson, an Iraq war veteran, was enraged by the police killings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota. So Johnson shot and killed five police officers, the deadliest incident for law enforcement, since September 11, 2001. Police killed Johnson that evening by detonating a bomb carried by a robot to the shooter's hideout in a parking garage, marking the first execution by robot in American history. Revin Hood was traumatized not only by the sniper. attack, but also when he got scapegoated for the deaths that day. Fox News host Megan Kelly put a target on Hood's back in the aftermath of the sniper

attack. Jeff Hood, he was one of the organizers of the march and quickly condemned the shootings today. Never in our wildest dreams would we have imagined that five police officers would be dead this morning. But critics were quick to point out that we were hearing a very different message from the Reverend just a short time before the shots rang out last night. Here is some of that. I'm sick of the bodies of black and brown people being slaughtered in our street. Hood agreed to be interviewed by Kelly, but the minister soon realized that Fox viewers blamed him for the officer's death, and they threatened vengeance.

I mean, after July the 7th, man, they always talk about threats. Didn't PD he was having to take the kids to school? And it was absolutely horrible. Witnessing people die that day, including the sniper Johnson's impromptu execution via remote control robot, deepen Hood's opposition to violence, including state killing. In 2022, he is ordained again, this time as a priest and was called the Old Catholic Faith, which accepts many of the doctrines and rights at the Roman Catholic Church, but rejects the doctrine of papal infallibility and authority.

Hood began writing to those on death row and then talking and praying with them in person. In 2022, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the Ramirez v. Collier case that condemned prisoners have the right to die in the company of a spiritual advisor. So it became a companion to the condemned in their last minutes. I began to have people reaching out during that time, you know, and asking me if I would accompany them to the death chamber. And, you know, it's one thing to be willing to have relationships with people who are executed. It's a whole other thing to be asked to participate in the process. And so since then, I've witnessed, been in the chamber with 10 different guys. So from January of 2023 to now, I've watched 10 different men be executed by the state.

Hood attended his first execution when the state of Oklahoma put Scott Eisenberg to death on January 12, 2023. 20 years earlier, Eisenberg murdered an elderly couple, including a man he bludgeoned to death. My first execution was Scott Eisenberg in Oklahoma, and he, Scott had a number of things going on, but we were very close. He had a lot of anger issues and, I think, difficulty controlling his temper. and whatnot. And, you know, so the reality was I was very frightened before I went in because I thought Scott was just going to go ballistic. And, you know, to be in that room with someone that goes ballistic, I mean, it's it's already traumatic enough, as I'm sure you can imagine, without, you know, something like that. But then again, you couldn't, you can't blame them for wanting to, you know,

push back and fight for their lives and whatnot. I found myself shaking, just, you know, my hands and my legs, just terror. I mean, just utterly terrified. And then they opened the door and I was let in and I saw Scott. And it's incredibly strange to see someone hooked up to machines that look like like they're there to support life, and yet you know that they're there to take his life. And so I wasn't able, I mean, I knew that there was a window on one side. I wasn't able to see through that window because there was a curtain down. And I began to pray with Scott. Scott had

asked me to read a number of scriptures. And I did. And I dropped my Bible at one point because I'm shaking so bad. I was having trouble holding it. You know, he notices that I'm shaking. He notices that I'm upset. And he looks at me and tells me everything's going to be okay. And I'm thinking to myself, no, it's not.

Like, no, it is not. And I'm thinking, you know, you're going to die. and I'm going to be scarred for life. Everything is not going to be okay. And I went to the scripture in John chapter 8 where Jesus encounters the adulterous woman, and there's that famous line, famous verse, You who are without sin cast the first stone.

And I read that in the chamber. And one of the lighter moments when we were in there was when I read that, you who are without sin cast the first son, I remember Scott looking up and pointing at the executioners and saying, you know, he's talking to y'all. Like, this is about y'all. Hood said that any sense that death by lethal injection is nonviolent is an illusion. In every lethal injection, I have immediately heard snoring. And what sounds not like, you know, snoring from, you know, that one would have when they

sleep or whatever, but more of a gurgling kind of snoring. And, you know, it's, the body responds in a very panicked fashion. And so it's almost like, it's like drowning someone who's completely paralyzed. And I think that that's, I think that's what is. It's been like every time. I think that there is a level of suffering that is hidden. There's a reason that, again, that it's made to look like a medical procedure, because it does look like a medical procedure.

I think it is a con. Hood found the lethal injections traumatizing, but that did not prepare him for what he witnessed when Alabama began executing prisoners through nitrous hypoxia. I can tell you that as horrible as a lethal injection is, and yes, it is a con job. I can tell you that I, what I saw during that nitrogen execution is indescribable. I can tell you that I think I would rather be burned to death than be executed by nitrogen. I mean, it is that bad.

Who attended the hypoxia suffocation of Kenneth Smith, a contract killer, on January 25th, 2024. the first such execution in American history. Smith had been sentenced to death 36 years earlier. Hood's that the horrors for him began. We stepped into the death chamber and saw Smith outfitted with a large mask that would deliver the poison gas. Attending this execution actually put Hood's life in jeopardy.

I can describe it for y'all's listeners, but the mask, which I'm holding right here, a replica, is basically something that is gazzanetting in the back. It has silicone straps. It's put over the back of someone's head, and it is strapped as tight as possible to try to keep it on. And it looks like a firefighter's mask with sort of a plexiglass plate on the front. And then there's a hose that's going from the firefighters' mask with the plexiglass plate

to the nitrogen. And so what isn't happening is they try to pump as much nitrogen as possible through this line. The problem is that these masks don't completely hold to form, I guess it's the best way of saying it, in that it's difficult for you to get an airtight seal. so the more oxygen that gets in here the more it's displacing nitrogen and so the more oxygen that's in here and obviously there's going to be oxygen in the tube there's going to be oxygen in the mass before the thing even starts is going to create more suffering it's going to create a longer process who knew that he would be in a chamber in which poison gas would be released and he felt obligated to tell his children in advance that he could be harmed they were terrified of course but he felt an obligation to provide Smith company and compassion as well. Again, we remind listeners that what they are about to hear might be upsetting.

So by the time we get to the point where they turn the nitrogen on, all the witnesses, everybody in the room is like going, nobody knows what's about to happen because it's never been tried before. And so they turn it on and Kenny immediately begins to heed back and forth and back and forth over and over. And every time he heaves forward, the back of the mask was strapped to the gurney. So every time he heaves forward, his face is hitting the front of that mask over and over and over and over. And so it's like watching someone hit their face against a playglass window. And it's like his nose and his face is flattening every time he does it. And he begins to

shake back and forth and back and forth, heaving up and down. I see spit and saliva and snot and, you know, eye water and all sorts of fluid is coming out of his face. And that fluid begins to build up on the front of the mask, and it begins to drizzle like a waterfall. Smith convulsed with so much force, prison officials worried his mask might come off, interrupting the execution and possibly killing hood and maybe others in attendance. A window separated hood from other witnesses and the violence of Smith's death caused a commotion. The windows are like super thick. I shouldn't have been able to hear anything, but I could hear somebody behind me screaming.

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, please stop, stop, stop, stop. And it was an absolute nightmare. And Kenny did not die for at least 22 minutes. And it's very possible that he didn't die for a longer period of time. But the state of Alabama declares, they say, oh, you know, he's not breathing, he's dead. Then they push everybody out of the room, and then they bring the doctor in after everybody's left to declare him dead. hood admits that some of the men he's counseled are capable of unspeakable evil even after years on death row but he still recalls each death he's witnessed with pain i feel morally compromised horrified but i i feel called or pushed to keep going because i think that the more traumatic thing would be to leave these guys alone now in terms of actually seeing it i

think that it's these images don't leave you there's nightmares there's they i always say that these guys haunt me they come night after night you know i'll see them at the end of my bed i mean i mean just yeah so so trauma is something i've become come to know very well in 2019 the united states supreme court ruled that prisoners do not have a right to a painless death when it green lighted the execution of Russell Bucklew, who had blood-filled tumors in his head, neck, and mouth that could have broken open as he was put to death. The highest court seems to have rendered the Eighth Amendment span on cruel and unusual punishment moot. Meanwhile, in recent years, it has not only been states that have enforced the death penalty. Between 1960 and 2019,

the federal government carried out only three executions. But in 2020 to early 2021, during the last six months of Donald Trump's first term as president, the federal government executed 13 men and women. These included Brandon Bernard, who committed a double murder when he was only 18. And another, Lisa Montgomery, whose psychologist believed was severely mentally ill and detached from reality at the time that she murdered a pregnant woman and cut the baby from her victim's body

in order to raise the child as her own. Joe Biden, on the other hand, at the end of his presidential term, sought to prevent a similar execution spree. Forty people were on death row and he commuted the sentence of 37 of them. The remaining three were Zokar Zarniv, the 2013 Boston Marathon Bomber,

Dylan Roof, who massacred nine members of the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, 2015, and Robert Bowers, who killed 11 at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. Back in power, however, Trump has vowed to make the death penalty great again. Anybody murders something in the capital, capital punishment, capital capital punishment.

If somebody kills somebody in the capital, Washington, D.C., we're going to be seeking the death penalty. And that's a very strong preventative. Trump's immediate plans aside, the future of the death penalty in the long term is not so certain. According to a 2024 Gallup opinion poll, support for the death penalty has sunk to its lowest level in half a century. Only 53% of Americans favor capital punishment, but that number skews heavily towards older Americans. More than half of Americans between the ages of 18 and 43 oppose the death penalty, and almost 60% of the so-called Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, are firmly against the death penalty. while Professor Corina Lane believes that even record low support for the death penalty is exaggerated and that support for capital punishment drops even further when other options are provided to voters.

You know, the president issued this executive order, a day one executive order. Let's go for the death penalty anytime we can. Let's execute everybody. And one of the things to realize is that the death penalty is dying in this country for reasons that, executive order cannot fix. People have less confidence in the death penalty. They don't trust the death penalty, nor should they. 200 people have been exonerated from death row. And Ray Spurion agrees. The decline in executions in the United States reflects a broader shift in how society views death penalty. I mean, more states are repealing it. Juries are imposing it less often, and the public support, while still dividing, has, you know, steadily

decreased, especially as concerns about wrongful convictions, the racial bias, and the high costs of capital punishment came to light. At the beginning of the 19th century, hangings were public, but they so often went awry and produced such grisly scenes, states move those executions and prison yards and sought a more humane alternative. That new method, the electric chair, proved horrifying as well and was deemed unsuitable for general audiences. The Supreme Court imposed a four-year pause in the death penalty beginning in 1972 because of its random application. In 1976, the High Court reauthorized capital punishment. A crisis ensued

when a Texas TV reporter sued for the right to televise executions. Horrified at the prospect of the condemned, essentially being burned alive in the electric chair in front of a primetime audience, states approved the latest innovation state killing, death by lethal injection. But throughout this history of execution, insurmountable flaws have remained consistent. The quest for a humane way to kill people on an announced schedule has been futile. Each form of the death penalty has been proven to be violent and caused suffering at great expenditure of public money. And plausibly innocent people have been put to death.

As the people in charge of punishment have changed execution methods over the years, they've also tried to prevent public backlash to revolting scenes of suffering, which could create the opposition to capital punishment that they fear. Politicians eager to prove they are tough on crime have also fought to hide these gruesome spectacles from public view. Nevertheless, Ray's Bouillon is optimistic that this grim aspect of life in the United States might soon come to an end. More than two-thirds of countries have abolished death penalty in law or practice with only a few countries carrying out the vast majority of executions. And I think the future is one where the death penalty continues to train worldwide as values of human rights, dignity, and justice without irreversible punishment to gain ground. Until next time, I'm Michael Phillips, and I'm Stephen Montchelli.

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I'm Robert Smith, and this is Jacob Goldstein, and we used to host a show called Planet Money. And now we're back making this new podcast called Business History about the best ideas and people and businesses in history. And some of the worst people, horrible ideas and destructive companies in the history of business. First episode, how Southwest Airlines use cheap seats and free whiskey to fight its way into the airline is. The most Texas story ever. Listen to Business History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Cal Penn, and on my new podcast, here we go again, we'll take today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you high? Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The murder of an 18-year-old girl in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved for years, until a local housewife, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story. America, y'all better work the hell up. Bad things happens to good people and sons.

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