Search About Newsletters Donate
An illustration shows a side-profile silhouette of a long-haired man against a yellow and green gradient background. The man looks toward a window that displays nature and has prairie animals coming out of it.
Life Inside March 18
California’s Longest Serving Death-Row Prisoner On Pain, Survival and Native Identity
As the Monache and Cherokee 63-year-old awaits a new hearing for a 1978 murder he denies committing, Douglas Ray Stankewitz shares the cultural tools and memories he depends on to stay alive.
By Douglas Ray Stankewitz as told to Richard Arlin Walker
Terence Andrus, wearing a white prison uniform, looks through glass. A phone hangs on either side of the divider.
Death Sentences February 1
They Went to Prison as Kids. Now They’re on Death Row.
Fight clubs, solitary confinement and neglect make juveniles angrier and more violent.
By Keri Blakinger and Maurice Chammah
Known to his listeners as “Megamind,” Ramy Hozaifeh is the voice — and the driving force — behind a new radio station run from inside one of the most notorious prisons in Texas.
Death Sentences December 20, 2021
The Prisoner-Run Radio Station That’s Reaching Men on Death Row
They can’t go to classes or prison jobs, and they don’t have tablets or televisions. But they do have radios.
By Keri Blakinger
John Henry Ramirez, who is incarcerated on death row at the Allan B. Polunsky Unit, in Livingston, Texas, on Sept. 1, 2021.
Death Sentences September 7, 2021
From Last Meals to Last Words, What Can Death Row Prisoners Request Before They Die?
As a Texas man sues for his pastor to touch him during his execution, a guide to rights for the condemned.
By Keri Blakinger and Maurice Chammah
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.
By Maurice Chammah and Keri Blakinger
A women kneels in front of a memorial at Gold Spa, one of three Atlanta-area spas targeted in a mass shooting that killed eight people, on March 18, 2021.
Death Sentences April 5, 2021
Death Penalty for Mass Shooters? Depends On Where They Strike.
The men arrested in recent killings in Atlanta, Boulder, Colorado, and Orange, California, could face very different sentences if convicted.
By Maurice Chammah and Keri Blakinger
Billie Allen, center, with his friends on federal death row who were executed, from left: Orlando Hall, Corey Johnson, Dustin Higgs, Brandon Bernard and Christopher Andre Vialva.
Life Inside April 1, 2021
Living With Survivor’s Guilt on Federal Death Row
I escaped Donald Trump’s last-minute execution spree. Now I have to find a way to keep fighting.
By Billie J. Allen
Jerry Jurek was convicted of killing 10-year-old Wendy Adams in 1973. His case went to the Supreme Court as one of several testing new death penalty laws around the country. Pictured here in 1979, left, and 2015, right.
Looking Back January 26, 2021
The Case That Made Texas the Death Penalty Capital
In an excerpt from his new book, ‘Let the Lord Sort Them,’ Marshall Project staff writer Maurice Chammah explains where a 1970s legal team fighting the death penalty went wrong.
By Maurice Chammah
Lisa Montgomery, scheduled to be executed on Jan. 12, endured repeated abuse and trauma as a child, much like many of the people who have been executed in the United States.
Death Sentences January 8, 2021
What Lisa Montgomery Has In Common With Many On Death Row: Extensive Trauma.
Mental illness, childhood abuse and brain injuries affect a large share of those who face the death penalty.
By Maurice Chammah and Keri Blakinger
Life Inside July 16, 2020
A Dispatch From Federal Death Row
Days before Daniel Lewis Lee became the first federal prisoner executed in 17 years, fellow death row resident Billie J. Allen wrote about the shared terror of wondering who’s next.
By Billie J. Allen
About
People
Jobs
Sitemap
Funders