Private executioners paid in cash. Middle-of-the-night killings. False or incomplete justifications.

More than a year ago, Nevada death row prisoner Scott Dozier gave up his legal appeals and asked to be executed. He’s still waiting.

A prison cook reflects on her daughter as she prepares a prisoner's last meal.

"See what I mean? Fussiness knows no bounds. Not even for inmates. We don’t serve shit-on-a-shingle, but sometimes you’d never believe it. Last week Brenda and me whipped up fifteen pans of German chocolate cake and don’t you know some idiot come up to Brenda complaining about the “presentation,” said his mama always made German chocolate cake in two layers, not in a sheet pan. Everybody’s a critic."

“It’s just like putting gas in a car that don’t have no motor.”

Andre Thomas cut out his children’s hearts and removed his own eyes. Texas considers him sane.

Joe Arridy had an IQ of 46. In 1939, he was executed for a crime he neither understood nor committed.

In 1992, Anthony Graves was arrested for brutally murdering a family in the middle of night. He had no motive. There was no physical evidence. The only witness recanted. And yet Graves remains behind bars.