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death sentences

Two death chairs in old Central Prison, Raleigh, NC, death chamber, no date (possibly 1950-60s). Courtesy of Keith Acree. From the General Negative Collection, State Archives of North Carolina, Raleigh, NC.

The Executioner’s Last Meal

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.

Chicago Police Torture: Explained

On Nov. 1, the FBI released a trove of previously undisclosed documents related to a decades-old investigation of police misconduct. In the 1990s, the agency investigated allegations of torture at the hands of Chicago police at the department’s Area 2 headquarters, where heinous acts of violence and psychological abuse were perpetrated against over 100 Black men and women under the supervision of then-commander Jon Burge.