Witness to the execution

Michael Graczyk has watched more than 300 people die, says Richard Pérez-Peña in The New York Times. Since the 1980s, the Houston-based Associated Press reporter has covered nearly every execution in Texas, which leads the nation in capital punishment. With so many newspapers folding or cutting back, Graczyk, 59, is now often the only impartial observer on the scene for this ultimate exercise of state power. He tries to keep his emotions and views on capital punishment to himself. “My job is to tell a story and tell what’s going on,” he says, “and if I tell you that I get emotional on one side or the other, I open myself to criticism.” To be fair, he tries to interview both the condemned killers and the victims’ families, and he is always looking for vivid details. He has heard convicts who are moments away from receiving lethal injections sing, pray, and confess to their crimes for the first time. One man went to his death singing “Silent Night,” though it wasn’t anytime near Christmas. “I can’t hear that song without thinking about it,” he says. “That one really stuck with me.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up