Anatomy of a Murder Confession
“Texas Ranger James Holland became famous for cajoling killers into confessing to their crimes. But did some of his methods — from lying to suspects to having witnesses hypnotized — ensnare innocent people, too?”
The Prisoner-Run Radio Station That’s Reaching Men on Death Row
“It was a week until he was scheduled to be executed, and I’d visited him to ask about his plea for prison officials to let his Baptist pastor lay a hand on him as he died. He answered my questions about his faith and whether he feared death, but what he really wanted to tell me about was the radio station.”
Life Without Parole Is Replacing the Death Penalty—But the Legal Defense System Hasn’t Kept Up
“Just ask a Dallas woman who spent a year in jail without talking to a lawyer.”
How We Survived Covid-19 in Prison
“At the start of the pandemic, we asked four incarcerated people to chronicle daily life with the coronavirus.” Bruce Bryant, Jennifer Graves, James Ellis, and Christopher Walker “reveal what they witnessed and how they coped with the chaos, fear, isolation and deaths.”
The Case That Made Texas the Death Penalty Capital
“As one of the first death sentences under the new law, Jurek’s case would become a test case, playing a key role in both the nationwide rise of the death penalty and Texas’s place at the center.”
‘Superpredator’
“The media myth that demonized a generation of Black youth.”
She Went Out For A Walk. Then Drogo The Police Dog Charged.
“Growing up, few Black families in Ayanna Brooks’s neighborhood had dogs. A vicious attack reminded her why.”
They Agreed to Meet Their Mother’s Killer. Then Tragedy Struck Again.
“A Florida family opted for restorative justice over the death penalty for the man who murdered their mom. What happened next made them question the very meaning of justice.”
Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi.
How the state’s “restitution program” forces poor people to work off small debts.
Chuck Coma Comes Home
Every year, thousands of people are assaulted in federal prisons and left to deal with their trauma. Chuck Coma, a two-time combat veteran incarcerated for armed robbery, was nearly killed by his cellmate. When he was eventually released, Chuck returned home unable to remember years of his life and suffering from uncontrollable tremors.