A riveting account of one death row inmateâs quest to dieâand a fearless look at how Americaâs system of punishment has failed the public it claims to serve.
When Scott Dozier was sent to Nevadaâs death row in 2007, convicted of a pair of grisly murders, he didnât cry foul or embark upon a protracted innocence campaign. He sought instead to expedite his executionâto hasten his inevitable death. He decided he would rather face his end swiftly than die slowly in solitary confinement. In volunteering for execution, Dozier may have been unusual. But in the tortuous events that led his death date to be scheduled and rescheduled, planned and then stayed, his time on death row was anything but.
In The Volunteer, Emmy awardâwinning investigative reporter Gianna Toboni traces the twists and turns of Dozierâs story, along the way offering a hard look at the history and controversy that surround the death penalty today. Toboni reveals it to be a system rife with black market dealings and supply chain labyrinths, with disputed drugs and botched executions. Todayâs death penalty, generally carried out through lethal injection, has proven so cumbersome, ineffective, and potentially harrowing that some states have considered a return to the electric chairs and firing squads of the past, believing those approaches to be not only more effective but more humane.
No matter where you stand on the morality of capital punishment, thereâs no denying that the death penalty is failing the American public. With costs running into the billions and countless lives kept in limbo, it has proven incapable of achieving its desired end: executing the inmates that fellow Americans have deemed guilty of the most heinous crimes. With The Volunteer, Toboni offers an insightful and profound look at how the death penalty went so terribly wrong. A spellbinding story down to its shocking conclusion, it brings to light the horrifying realities of state-sanctioned killingsârealities that many would prefer to ignore.