The Alabama Murders - Part 5: Cruel and Unusual
Malcolm Gladwell examines the botched 2022 execution attempt of Kenny Smith in Alabama, situating it within the broader history and practice of lethal injection. Through interviews with Smith's mother, his longtime lawyer, a medical expert, and courtroom and press excerpts, the episode details Alabama's lethal injection protocol, previous failed executions, and the political response that extended the time window for executions. The story raises questions about what constitutes "cruel and unusual" punishment and how a method designed to appear humane can mask severe suffering and systemic failure.
The Alabama Murders - Part 4: The Protocol
Malcolm Gladwell continues the story of John Forrest Parker, focusing on Parker's decades on Alabama's death row, his relationship with prison minister Tom Perry Jr., and the events of his 2010 execution. The episode then traces the improvised origins of the lethal injection protocol and presents medical evidence from autopsies suggesting that executions by lethal injection likely cause agonizing internal injury while appearing peaceful. Gladwell frames the narrative with James Keenan's idea that sin is the failure to bother to care, contrasting Perry's steadfast care with the broader indifference to how executions actually work.
The Alabama Murders
This short episode introduces a special seven-episode Revisionist History series titled "The Alabama Murders." Using the 2003 Northeast blackout as an analogy for a "failure cascade," the host frames a decades-long Alabama murder case as a moral and legal cascade involving a woman killed in her home, a charismatic preacher, disputed jury and judicial decisions, long imprisonment, lethal injection, and far‑reaching harm. Interview clips hint at themes of religious culture, judicial power, the death penalty, and how a justice system meant to respond to suffering can instead amplify it.