On the day he had been scheduled to die, Scott Dozier arrived at the visiting room inside Ely State Prison looking edgy and exhausted. He’d been thwarted. For more than a year, he had worked to ensure his own execution, waiving his legal appeals and asking a Las Vegas judge to set a date. But with just days to go, the judge had issued a stay amid questions about the drugs Nevada planned to inject into him.

They spent millions of dollars giving me a death sentence, and then millions of dollars not killing me.

Like many death penalty states, Nevada hasn’t actually executed anyone in years. Dozier’s request spurred a frenzy of preparations involving state and federal lawyers, judges, political leaders and prison officials, who had to rev up an execution apparatus that had been dormant for a decade.

When a prisoner volunteers for execution, the decision can force soul-searching by judges and defense lawyers, who wonder if their roles have become akin to those of euthanasia doctors.

Read the full article on Scott Dozier by Maurice Chammah at The Marshall Project