Death Penalty

The governor's moratorium affects 737 people—more than a quarter of the country's death row inmates.

Texas has been trying to execute Bobby Moore for decades. The Supreme Court once again said "no."

The Supreme Court denied Domineque Ray's request to have his Muslim imam in the room during his lethal injection, raising questions of religious discrimination. But his trial and death sentence were an uphill battle from the start.

The Lone Star state has still not come up with a single method of determining which prisoners should be exempt from the death penalty, despite a Supreme Court mandate.

The presidential candidate has an interesting record of championing reform while working within political constraints.

The total number of executions is declining, but we're not executing the worst criminals—just the criminals with the worst lawyers.

With this ruling, Washington joined 20 other states and the District of Columbia that consider juvenile life without parole unconstitutional

America's courts still don't have clear protections for defendants with severe mental illness.

After hearing the last appeal from a man on death row, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the death penalty, as applied in the state, is unconstitutional.

Officials in Nebraska used fentanyl to execute a death row inmate on Tuesday, marking the first time the powerful opioid has been used to carry out the death penalty in the United States.

In only the second-ever case of its kind, a pharmaceutical company sued Wednesday to stop the state of Nevada from using an untested drug in a lethal injection.

In colonial Virginia, authorities could hang settlers for a crime as small as stealing grapes or killing a neighbor's chicken. The penal code in America's first colony was, in fact, so harsh its governor eventually reduced the number of capital offenses out of fear that settlers would refuse to live there. Since then, the number and severity of crimes punishable by death in the United States have fluctuated; today, the death penalty is still legal in 31 states. Here are some of the critical turning points in the history of capital punishment in America.

What happens when suicide forestalls any possibility of justice?

Seventeen inmates in Oklahoma are awaiting set execution dates.

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Research has identified embedded racism in IQ tests. Now, prosecutors in at least eight states are using that research—to legalize more executions.

When her brother is sentenced to death for a murder he didn't commit, one woman takes on the corrosive culture of capital punishment.

Judges in Alabama frequently override jury’s sentences of life without parole to impose capital punishment.

Even as it's grown increasingly rare.

Is lethal injection the most humane method of execution? Is there another way? Should we eliminate the death penalty altogether? Here’s some of the best reporting on the practice.

New research finds a convict is more likely to be sentenced to death if he has an untrustworthy face.

The death penalty isn't just a part of the criminal justice system where racial disparities become visible—it may also be a cause.

The expert ended up prompting a back-and-forth between Supreme Court justices, who narrowly upheld use of a lethal injection drug.

Today's Supreme Court ruling on a lethal injection drug represents a confluence of several modern challenges to capital punishment.