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Death Sentences February 10, 2021
What 120 Executions Tell Us About Criminal Justice in America
The Marshall Project tracked every execution in America for more than five years. For condemned people, the path to death grew longer, more winding and erratic.
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Two individuals in black suits walk through the entrance of a barbed wire fence. A tan prison is behind the fence.
Closing Argument January 27, 2024
New Execution Methods, Old Problems
What the first execution by nitrogen in the U.S. says about capital punishment.
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A photo shows a gurney and a blue chair inside a death chamber. An adjacent room is shown through a window, with three people standing and one person holding a camera inside.
Closing Argument September 13
What’s Behind the Execution Surge of 2025? Here Are Four Theories
States have executed 30 people this year — already the highest annual total in more than a decade.
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Earlene Peterson, whose daughter and granddaughter were killed, in her home in Hector, Ark., in 2019.
Feature July 24, 2020
Witnesses to the Execution
An oral history of the first federal execution under Donald Trump, as told by victims’ relatives, prison staff, and others.
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First & Latest September 30, 2015
Georgia Executed its First Woman in 70 Years
A closer look at why female executions are so rare.
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Scott Dozier was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of 22-year-old Jeremiah Miller.
News October 15, 2018
Scott Dozier Still Wants to be Executed. And He's Still Waiting.
After forcing Nevada into a legal battle over its lethal injection drugs, an execution “volunteer” says the state is punishing him.
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Commentary July 27, 2015
Executing ‘Idiots’
Would the Founders have protected people we execute now?
By Michael Clemente
George Hall, a White man, smokes a cigarette while sitting in the driver's seat of a car.
Death Sentences February 25
He Refused to Become a Jailhouse Snitch. Can He Stop David Wood’s Execution?
Texas plans to execute Wood in March. George Hall claims police wanted him to say that Wood confessed six Texas murders to him in prison.
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Robert Roberson, a White man wearing a prison uniform, sits in a phone booth behind glass at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit.
Death Sentences October 6
Did the ‘Psychopath Test’ Help Send an Innocent Man to His Execution?
The case against Robert Roberson, whose execution is scheduled for Oct. 16, is the latest to raise questions about a controversial diagnosis.
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News April 10, 2017
Here are the 7 men Arkansas plans to execute this month
The cases of the condemned capture much of the debate for and against the death penalty.
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The execution chamber at the prison in Lucasville, Ohio. The curtain covers the window to the witness room.
Analysis October 18, 2017
A Long Decline in Executions Takes a Detour
Recent court rulings and start-stop access to lethal drugs push numbers up this year.
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Raymond Riles, right, with Ronald O’Bryan at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, Texas, in 1979. In that era, incarcerated people on death row could go to the exercise yard for three 90-minute periods a week.
Death Sentences February 4, 2021
He’s Too Mentally Ill to Execute. Why Is He Still on Death Row After 45 Years?
Raymond Riles has been on death row longer than anyone in America. He’s one of many who have languished there for decades with severe mental illnesses.
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Gerald Pizzuto Jr., circa 2000.
Death Sentences May 6, 2021
They Are Terminally Ill. States Want To Execute Them Anyway.
“I don’t understand trying to kill somebody who is already dying,” says the sister of Idaho death-row prisoner Gerald Pizzuto.
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News August 31, 2015
In the Execution Business, Missouri Is Surging
Defense lawyers call it a crisis; the state says it’s just doing its job.
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Fulton, a White woman with blonde hair, sits on a gray couch next to picture frames holding photos that show her daughter Desiree, a young White girl.
Death Sentences March 7
She’s Waited Decades for David Wood’s Execution. Now, Evidence Casts Doubt on His Guilt.
The case of a victim’s mother and one of the longest-serving death row prisoners shows how capital appeals can seem both endless and rushed.
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The Texas execution chamber in Huntsville, Texas, on June 23, 2000.
Analysis June 30, 2016
It’s Been Almost Two Months Since the U.S. Executed Someone
We’re in the middle of one of the longest death penalty lulls in 24 years.
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Looking Back March 16, 2015
Cecil Clayton, a Man Missing Part of His Brain, is About to Be Executed
And he is not the first.
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A White woman in a black shirt smiles for a picture as she hugs her father, who is wearing a white prison uniform.
St. Louis October 15
Their Dads Were on Death Row in Missouri. Here’s How They Faced Goodbyes, Executions and Grief.
The children of Lance Shockley, Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams Sr. and Kevin Johnson shed light on oft-forgotten experiences.
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A view of the execution chamber in Ely State Prison in Ely, Nevada, in 2016.
News August 30, 2017
Nevada Plans to Use Fentanyl in Upcoming Execution
Medical professionals say the state’s new lethal injection protocol “doesn’t make much sense.”
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The viewing room looking into the new execution chamber at Ely State Prison in Nevada.
Commentary September 28, 2017
After Executions, Defense Attorneys Have Their Own Grief
A therapist on the emotional price lawyers pay to defend individuals sentenced to death.
Susannah Sheffer
An officer outside the the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana, where the federal government was preparing to execute Daniel Lewis Lee in July 2020.
Death Sentences January 14, 2021
A $6,300 Bus. A $33 Last Meal. What New Documents Tell Us About Trump’s Execution Spree
Feds spent millions to restart the death penalty and in the process revealed much about how they do it.
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A photograph shows barbed wire and a prison tower at Holman Prison at sunset.
Death Sentences January 18, 2024
Vomiting, Seizures, Stroke: What Could Happen in the First Nitrogen Execution in the U.S.
A doctor on what’s new — and what isn’t — about the latest death penalty experiment.
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A balding White man wearing a white prison uniform talks on a phone, hand outstretched toward the camera, from behind protective glass at a Texas prison.
Death Sentences October 9
5 Things to Know About Robert Roberson’s Stayed Execution in Texas
The state wanted to put him to death by lethal injection. Then a court intervened.
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News May 15, 2015
Executing Tsarnaev? Not So Fast.
Like many states, the feds have trouble getting the killer drugs.
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Life Inside April 12, 2018
Why This Judge Dreads Execution Day
“I wondered whether the system I have been a part of for so long was, simply, barbaric.”
By Mike Lynch
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