Nation Topics - Death Penalty | The Nation

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.

Hank Skinner was scheduled to die on November 9, but his execution was halted by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Will the state finally agree to test the evidence in his case?

Roars of applause for executions at the GOP debate, official approval of torture, barbaric prison conditions, obstruction of aid to storm victims and children in need—is our nation descending into barbarism?

In my own experience as a journalist covering this issue, the vast majority of politicians who defend capital punishment do so out of rank opportunism.

There will not be justice for Troy Davis. But his case has reawakened Americans to a relic of injustice that must be abolished once and for all.