On Human Slaughter

Incisive, compassionate, and revelatory reporting from America’s death row, named a 2023 Pulitzer Prize finalist for feature writing. An Atlantic Edition, featuring long-form journalism by Atlantic writers, drawn from contemporary articles or classic storytelling from the magazine’s 165-year archive. Elizabeth Bruenig’s sensitive reporting pulls back the curtain on a routine crisis in America’s death chambers: state executioners’ inability to kill the condemned humanely. She takes readers to the