Killing TimesKilling Times begins with the deceptively simple observationmade by Jacques Derrida in his seminars on the topicthat the death penalty mechanically interrupts mortal time by preempting the typical mortal experience of not knowing at what precise moment we will die. Through a broader examination of what constitutes mortal temporality, David Wills proposes that the so called machinery of death summoned by the death penalty works by exploiting, or