Death row prisoners rarely get last meals, writes Lyle May, who is on death row in North Carolina. But on the night of an execution, the prison staff break room is full of cookies and cake.
Children in the former death row unit at Angola, one of the nation’s most infamous prisons, have been locked in solitary confinement, shackled while they eat and play, and attacked by guards.
Last year, the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice began transferring children to Angola, the state’s most notorious prison. Since then, kids say they’ve suffered through horrific conditions and routine mistreatment.
An upcoming court ruling could decide the fate of a plan to detain “problematic youth” at a facility that previously housed prisoners awaiting execution.
Prosecutors who have championed criminal justice reforms are still seeking death sentences, opposing appeals, and, in some cases, have even petitioned for execution dates.
While bans on capital punishment progress at the state level, the federal government is racing to carry out three more executions before President Trump’s term end. Ten people have been put to death since July, the first such executions since 2003.
A reasonable society does not meet trauma with more trauma in the name of justice.
All but nine of California’s 35 prisons house more people than the facility was designed to hold.
Across the country, the death penalty is in steep decline. But in September, the state’s attorney general sought execution dates for nine men, and its Supreme Court set dates for two of them.
It’s the first time since 2014 that someone on Georgia’s death row has been granted clemency.
With Appeal staff reporter Lauren Gill
With Appeal staff reporter Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
Some death row prisoners will be moved to another unit with access to direct sunlight, fenced-in recreation, and contact visits, department says.
Civil rights groups demand change as other states move away from the practice of isolating people sentenced to death.
Marion Wilson’s was the 1,500th execution since 1976, the year Georgia resumed the death penalty after the Supreme Court’s decision in Gregg v. Georgia.
Patrick Murphy didn’t even learn about the murder until later that day. A controversial law allows him to be executed anyway.
California amended its felony murder law, which holds accomplices responsible for murder. But reform won’t reach a man sentenced to death in a deadly robbery—even though he was never accused of firing a shot.
To beat the clock on the expiration of its lethal injection drug supply, this past April, Arkansas tried to execute eight men over eleven days. The stories told in frantic legal filings and clemency petitions revealed a deeply disturbing picture.