The Case That Made Texas the Death Penalty Capital
Texas juries send people to death row by making predictions about future violence. Racial bias has often played a troubling role. In the 1970s, one Supreme Court case paved the way.
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Texas juries send people to death row by making predictions about future violence. Racial bias has often played a troubling role. In the 1970s, one Supreme Court case paved the way.
Maurice Chammah The Marshall Project Jan 2021 20min Permalink
Private executioners paid in cash. Middle-of-the-night killings. False or incomplete justifications.
Isaac Arnsdorf ProPublica Dec 2020 20min Permalink
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.
Eli Hager The Marshall Project Jul 2020 30min Permalink
The arson case that may have led Texas to execute an innocent man.
David Grann New Yorker Sep 2009 1h5min Permalink
There was no doubt: Jeremy Gross had brutally murdered a convenience store clerk. All that was left to decide was his punishment. Death or life without parole? The story of a capital murder trial, as seen from the jury box.
Alex Kotlowitz New York Times Magazine Jul 2003 35min Permalink
More than a year ago, Nevada death row prisoner Scott Dozier gave up his legal appeals and asked to be executed. He’s still waiting.
Maurice Chammah The Marshall Project Jan 2018 20min Permalink
Christian Longo brutally murdered his familyand then posed in Mexico as a New York Times reporter named Michael Finkel. From death row, Longo asked the real Finkel to attend his execution.
Michael Finkel Esquire Dec 2009 1h Permalink
Growing up in Toledo, Ohio, Gina Grimm always wondered who her biological parents were. “You know, you go to the supermarket and think, ‘That lady kinda has my nose.’ Or, you know, ‘That man kinda has a resemblance to my face.’”
Liliana Segura The Intercept Apr 2017 10min Permalink
Only 16 counties regularly impose death sentences, and they have three things in common: overaggressive prosecutors, defense lawyers who aren’t up to the task and cultural legacies of racial bias. Florida’s Fourth Judicial Circuit is among them.
An attorney pieces together a life cut short.
Burke M. Butler The Marshall Project Mar 2016 20min Permalink
Vengeance, abuse, and the strange double standards of death penalty politics.
Marc Bookman Mother Jones Nov 2015 15min Permalink
A profile of Judy Clarke, who takes on the most heinous, notorious defendants in America, trying to save them from the death penalty. Until Dzokhar Tsarnaev, she usually succeeded.
Patrick Radden Keefe New Yorker Sep 2015 45min Permalink
The case of Richard Glossip, whose failed Supreme Court challenge of execution methods now leaves him waiting for death. But he still insists he’s innocent.
Liliana Segura, Jordan Smith The Intercept Jul 2015 25min Permalink
The death of an infant lands his father on death row in Louisiana.
Rachel Aviv New Yorker Jun 2015 25min Permalink
The events leading up to the botched execution of Clayton Lockett.
Jeffrey E. Stern The Atlantic Jun 2015 35min Permalink
A profile of Judy Clarke, the publicity-shy anti-death-penalty attorney, who has defended the Unabomber, Susan Smith, and Jared Loughner.
Mark Bowden Vanity Fair Mar 2005 25min Permalink
A profile of Michelle Lyons, who viewed 278 executions as both a local reporter and a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Pamela Colloff Texas Monthly Sep 2014 40min Permalink
The mysterious life and death of Dow B. Hover, the man who ran New York’s electric chair.
Jennifer Gonnerman Village Voice Jan 2005 15min Permalink
With two children in tow, a woman prepares to witness her lover's execution by lethal injection.
"Lyell gave her a shove, then she gave him a shove, and they raced to the guest bedrooms and put on their nicest outfits. Twenty minutes later they sat at Cornelia’s dining room table, waiting for her to speak. She inhaled deeply. Her fine blond hair was wrenched from her scalp into a tight, high-sitting barrette. 'Where we are about to go,' Cornelia whispered, 'must remain a secret. Can you children remember that?' They nodded. 'Today, we embark on a farewell mission,' she said, 'a goodbye mission for a friend who will enter the other side—which is to say, children, that he will be killed.'"
Heather Fowler The Barcelona Review Jan 2001 20min Permalink
Two men named Nathan committed murders. Only one received a death sentence.
Natasha Gardner, Patrick Doyle 5280 Dec 2008 35min Permalink
Carlos De Luna, convicted of murdering gas station clerk Wanda Lopez, was executed in 1989. But was another man named Carlos actually guilty of the crime?
Maurice Possley, Steve Mills The Chicago Tribune Jun 2006 35min Permalink
An interview:
Watkins: And then, all of a sudden, you notice that it appears that he is falling asleep and gasping for air—like he is snoring, basically. You could classify it as snoring or as gasping for air. You see his chest moving, and then I guess very quickly—maybe two minutes in—his chest stops moving. And we stand there, I guess, for another 10 minutes, and everybody is just kind of standing there. D Magazine: In total silence? Watkins: No one’s talking. No one’s saying anything. And then you notice that the condemned, he starts to turn this bluish color. So I guess that’s when all his functions have stopped. And then a doctor walks in and takes his vital signs and announces that the person is—he looks at the clock and announces, “The person died at 6:22.” And then they open the door and we all walk out.
Craig Watkins, Zac Crain D Magazine Apr 2012 Permalink
Three primary reasons: A desire for vengeance, the sanitization of executions and, ironically, the reliability of DNA evidence.
Radley Balko The Huffington Post Sep 2011 15min Permalink
How mitigation specialists are changing the application of the death penalty:
In Texas, the most prominent mitigation strategist is a lawyer named Danalynn Recer, the executive director of the Gulf Region Advocacy Center. Based in Houston, GRACE has represented defendants in death-penalty cases since 2002. “The idea was to improve the way capital trials were done in Texas, to start an office that would bring the best practices from other places and put them to work here,” Recer said recently. “This is not some unknowable thing. This is not curing cancer. We know how to do this. It is possible to persuade a jury to value someone’s life.”
Jeffrey Toobin New Yorker May 2011 20min Permalink
In the days after 9/11, Mark Stroman went on a revenge killing spree in Texas. Rais Bhuiyan survived and, a decade later, tried to stop Stroman’s execution.
Michael J. Mooney D Magazine Oct 2011 25min Permalink