We Kill Our Revolutionaries

Chris Hedges / Truthdig Feb 23, 2015 Siddique Hasan, who never committed murder, is on death row in Ohio not for what he did but for who he is. Dig deeper ( 15 Min. Read )

That Bird Has My Wings: An Acrostic Pantoum About Death Row Prisoner Jarvis Jay Masters

Staff / Truthdig Feb 4, 2015 Carolyne Wright's touching poem echoes the powerful words of Jarvis Jay Masters, an African-American on death row in a California prison. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Death Penalty Report Cites Value of Taping Interrogations

Staff / Truthdig May 8, 2014 A report advocating death penalty reforms finds that false confessions in capital cases can be limited by recording the questioning of suspects. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Egypt Sentences 683 to Death, Bans Youth Movement

Peter Z. Scheer / Truthdig Apr 29, 2014 A judge in Egypt on Monday sentenced 683 members of the Muslim Brotherhood to death, including the group's leader, in a trial that Human Rights Watch has deemed unfair. Simultaneously, the April 6 movement that ignited the country's revolution has been banned for the crimes of embarrassing Egypt and protesting without permission. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Texas Death Row Inmate: ‘Slavery’ Endures in Jails Around America

Staff / Truthdig Mar 5, 2014 In what he says may be his "final statement on Earth," Texas death row inmate Ray Jasper offers a plainly devastating take on the American judicial system and on Texas' bizarre law of parties, which allows the state to execute him even though he didn't commit murder. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Race Inequality in America by Graph, From Crime Sentencing to Income

Juan Cole / Truthdig Feb 17, 2014 Most death sentences are handed out for killing white people, even though African-Americans make up 50 percent of murder victims (they are only 12 percent of the population). Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Florida Set to Execute Mentally Ill Man (UPDATED)

Staff / Truthdig Aug 6, 2013 Barring a last-minute intervention, John Errol Ferguson is scheduled to die by lethal injection Monday night despite the fact that he's been diagnosed with a "severe" mental illness. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )

Death Row Prisoner William Van Poyck’s Final Farewell

Staff / Truthdig Jun 26, 2013 On June 12, the state of Florida executed a man convicted of killing a corrections officer during a failed attempt to free a prisoner in 1987. In a May article, Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges wrote that William Van Poyck “spent years exposing the cruelty of our system of mass incarceration.” We reprint his last letters to his sister in full. Dig deeper ( 5 Min. Read )

Death Row Inmate Denied DNA Test, Scheduled to Be Executed Tuesday

Tracy Bloom / Truthdig May 6, 2013 According to Dov Fox of the Georgetown University Law Center, there was never any physical evidence linking Willie Jerome Manning to the slayings. The FBI has also recently acknowledged that the forensics evidence used to convict him was flawed. Dig deeper ( 2 Min. Read )

Chris Hedges Walks With a Champion of the Imprisoned

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Nov 22, 2012 “It has been so strange,” Herbert Richardson told incarceration activist Bryan Stevenson on the day of his execution. “All day long people have been saying to me, ‘What can I do to help you?’ … More people have said what can they do to help me in the last 14 hours of my life than they ever did” before, Chris Hedges writes in Smithsonian magazine. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Texas Executes Mentally Disabled Death Row Prisoner

Alexander Reed Kelly / Truthdig Aug 8, 2012 A perversion of American literature helped the state of Texas make 54-year-old Marvin Wilson the second mentally disabled prisoner to be executed within its borders in three weeks. Dig deeper ( 3 Min. Read )

Connecticut Abolishes Capital Punishment

Staff / Truthdig Apr 26, 2012 Connecticut this week became the 17th state to abolish the death penalty, replacing it with an ultimate punishment of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Dig deeper ( 1 Min. Read )