The Marshall Project: What 120 executions tell us about criminal justice in America Updated Feb 10, 2021; By Tom Meagher | The Marshall Project For five and a half years, The Marshall Project has tracked every execution in America. Despite the trauma suffered in these cases—all of them marked by profound losses—they are all too often invisible to most of us. By recording each story and noting every death, we could show how the machinery of capital punishment quietly grinds forward while few are watching. In the process, we hoped to better understand how our courts and prisons dispense their most severe punishment.