death-penalty

How Much Do Executions Cost?

Hamilton Nolan · 11/12/14 09:58AM

In this clip from the upcoming documentary The Penalty, experts on all sides of the capital punishment issue discuss the astronomical amount of money required to execute people in America.

Supreme Court Halts Execution of Missouri Inmate

Gabrielle Bluestone · 10/28/14 10:00PM

The scheduled execution of Mark Christeson, a Missouri man who murdered a woman and her two children, was temporarily halted Tuesday night by the Supreme Court over concerns his case had not been properly reviewed.

Hamilton Nolan · 10/23/14 04:45PM

Sixty three percent of Americans now support the death penalty, down from a high of 80% twenty years ago. Among Democrats, support has fallen below 50%. There's probably a good reason for the decline.

Belgium Will Euthanize Jailed Rapist Who Doesn't Want to Live Anymore

Allie Jones · 09/16/14 04:15PM

Belgium's authorities have agreed to euthanize Frank Van Den Bleeken, a prisoner serving a life sentence for rape and murder. Even though the country doesn't have the death penalty, authorities have let prisoners with terminal illnesses be put to death since 2002. Van Den Bleeken's illness, however, is psychiatric—he says his desire to be sexually violent will never go away.

Healing Inmates in Order to Kill Them

Hamilton Nolan · 06/11/14 10:39AM

San Quentin State Prison is home to California's death row. And the condition of the residents of that death row is such that the state is about to open a mental hospital just for them.

Adam Weinstein · 05/13/14 01:23PM

Sometimes someone forces you to really evaluate whether you could oppose the death penalty in all cases. Sometimes that person commits suicide in a prison cell, and you set your complicated feelings down for a bit.

A Kinder Way to Kill

Christopher Connor · 05/10/14 12:40PM

I grew up with a killer. My father. He didn't kill in a way that would ever send him to jail. He wasn't in the military. Instead, he used the death penalty. Sometimes he called and gave the order for inmates to be executed.