The program recounts the final days before the execution of Edward Earl Johnson, an American prisoner convicted of rape and murder and imprisoned in the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Johnson protested his innocence and claimed that his confession had been made under duress. He was executed in Mississippi's gas chamber on May 20, 1987.The question as to whether or not it is morally acceptable for the state to execute people, and if so under what circumstances, has been debated for centuries.The ethical problems involved include the general moral issues of punishment with the added problem of whether it is ever morally right to deprive a human being of life.