Nation Topics - Death Penalty | The Nation

As an investigative journalism student, I helped uncover proof that should have cleared Anthony McKinney’s name. Instead, he died in prison.

When a prisoner faces the execution chamber four times in one year, is it not cruel and unusual punishment?

As Kimberly McCarthy was put to death—the 500th Texas prisoner executed since 1982—protesters and crime victims alike came to bear witness.

“I killed the thing that almost killed me,” said Kirk Bloodsworth, who faced execution in Maryland, the latest state to outlaw capital punishment.

Witnesses say they saw Timothy McKinney shoot an off-duty police officer in 1997. But their stories have changed—and the DA’s office has been caught hiding evidence in death penalty trials.

A decade after Illinois Governor George Ryan emptied death row and pardoned four innocent men who were tortured by police under Commander Jon Burge, the city of Chicago has not admitted to its collective crimes.

As a death row lawyer who fights to keep his clients alive, I believe life without parole denies the possibility of redemption every bit as much as strapping a murderer to the gurney and filling him with poison.

Illinois has shuttered a commission formed to examine the cases of prisoners who say they were abused under Chicago’s former Police Commander Jon Burge years ago. But a truth-telling play—by the journalist who broke the story—will not let us forget.

Why did the Court limit its ruling to cases with mandatory sentences, instead of banning juvenile life without parole altogether?

Sentenced to die after his DNA was found on murder victim Stacy Stites, Reed insists it was proof of an illicit affair—and that her police officer fiancé is the real killer.