The death row assembly line

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

I'm Ina Garten, and each week on Happy Hour, I invite new and old friends for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City.

On this week's episode, I'm joined by Nathan Lane. We talk about his critically claimed run in Death of a Salesman, taking his dog to therapy, and winning an Emmy for Only Murders in the Building. New episodes of Happy Hour are available every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_2 (0:37)

Megan Rapinoe here. This week on Why Are You Like This, I am talking with Shrinkings and Ugly Bettys, Michael Urie. We dig into his Plano, Texas upbringing and how Vanessa Williams had a huge impact on his career. I'm also weighing in on the Indiana Fever GM Amber Cox's comments on their fan base. Check out the latest episode of Why Are You Like This, wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.

Miles Bryan (1:08)

Welcome to The Gray Area. I'm Vox reporter and producer, Miles Bryan, sitting in for Sean today. My guest is Pamela Colloff. She's a writer for the New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, and she has a new book out called To Catch a Devil. Our conversation focused on the death penalty. Is there a humane way for the state to kill someone? Does the death penalty bring closure to victims' families? Should the death penalty exist at all?

It's a great conversation that goes some surprising places.

Pamela Colloff, welcome to The Gray Area.

Pamela Colloff (1:48)

Thank you so much for having me.

Miles Bryan (1:50)

We're really excited to talk to you about your reporting on the death penalty in Florida, and about your new book To Catch a Devil, which is about a jailhouse informant whose testimony puts a guy on death row.

But let me just start with a question about why you're interested in this. You've been covering the justice system for decades, you've been writing about the death penalty for decades. What keeps you coming back?

Pamela Colloff (2:11)

So I grew up as a staunch advocate of the death penalty. I was a child of the 80s and was a law and order person growing up. And when I moved to Texas and started reporting in the mid to late 90s, it was sort of an unavoidable topic here. So I was frequently going to Huntsville, Texas. I was covering executions. I was writing about both defendants and victims' families. And I think I had the journey that a lot of Americans have had over that time period, which is seeing how deeply, deeply flawed this institution is and how often we get it wrong.

And I think getting to know some of the people inside that system, seeing the impact that had on people who work within the criminal justice system, as well as victims' families and defendants, really changed the way I came to think of the death penalty. And that became sort of an obsession, I guess you could say.

Miles Bryan (3:18)

That is so interesting. And most people won't cop to changing their minds. Before we go any further, why were you pro death penalty? Was that something you thought through as a young person or just were kind of instinctually supportive?

Pamela Colloff (3:29)

I think it was a reflective, I came up in the tough on crime era, grew up in New York City in the 80s, and I don't think it was a position I had thought deeply about or really knew much about. I think I understood it the way a teenager does. Somebody does something, they're the worst of the worst, quote unquote. They commit a crime that is beyond egregious.

That's the penalty you get. I hadn't thought it through more than that. I think for me, and I think this is true for a lot of Americans, the advent of DNA testing really helped show.

I remember one turning point for me, which came in the late 80s, was seeing an incredible documentary by Errol Morris called The Thin Blue Line, which I cannot urge listeners to watch enough if they haven't seen it. And it's about a wrongful conviction in Dallas, in Texas, where I'm now based. And it was so shocking to me at whatever, I was in high school, I'm not sure what grade, that you could not only get a case that wrong, but you could get a case that wrong and send someone to death row and give them the ultimate punishment. And that combined with what followed with this revolution in DNA testing that showed that people who said there are innocent people on death row, they were not crazy. This was true. And it was more common than I think anyone realized. And it sort of laid bare all of the problems of the criminal justice system, all of the different things that lead to wrongful convictions.