death penalty

June 17, 2015 - Last week a federal judge ordered the release of Albert Woodfox, who's been held in solitary confinement in Louisiana for 43 years, though a higher court blocked the move while the state appeals. Meanwhile, prisoners are suing over Virginia's policy of placing death row inmates in solitary, arguing that the practice amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

December 19, 2014 - George Stinney, Jr. did not receive fair trial in a murder case in the Jim Crow South, a judge says.

March 28, 2014 - This week Amnesty International released its annual report on the death penalty worldwide, finding that the United States executes more people than just four other countries -- China, Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. It also shows that when it comes to state-sanctioned killing, the U.S. South is an outlier among outliers.

March 13, 2014 - This week Glenn Ford, a black man wrongfully convicted of murder by an all-white jury in Louisiana, was freed after spending 30 years on death row at the state's notorious Angola penitentiary. What did he endure in a place where a federal judge has ruled conditions amount to "cruel and unusual punishment"?

July 5, 2013 - North Carolina has repealed its groundbreaking law targeting racial discrimination in administration of the death penalty, but Republican lawmakers looking for a speedy return of executions are likely to have their hopes dashed in the courts.

June 12, 2013 - The NAACP-led protesters who've been gathering weekly at the North Carolina General Assembly have offered a textbook example of how to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience. But the reaction from some of the state's elected officials has been less than respectful -- and has evoked an ugly chapter of Southern history.

June 7, 2013 - North Carolina lawmakers this week voted to repeal the Racial Justice Act, a groundbreaking state law that allows death row inmates to have their sentences commuted to life without parole if they can prove racial bias played a role in their cases.