Our Top 5 stories of the week from Maurice Chammah, Benoît Morenne, Amanda Gefter, Jane Miller, and Cheryl Katz and our first-ever audience award.
Maurice Chammah
The Mercy Workers
“For three decades, a little-known group of ‘mitigation specialists’ has helped save death-penalty defendants by documenting their childhood traumas. A rare look inside one case.”
How to Save True Crime: A Reading List of Wrongful Conviction Stories
Stories about wrongful convictions open our eyes to systemic injustices in the U.S. court system. Maurice Chammah, a staff writer at The Marshall Project, compiles his recommended longreads within the genre.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Maurice Chammah, Jeff Weiss, Rasha Elass, Danielle Tcholakian, and Lila Shapiro.
The Case That Made Texas the Death Penalty Capital
“As one of the first death sentences under the new law, Jurek’s case would become a test case, playing a key role in both the nationwide rise of the death penalty and Texas’s place at the center.”
You’re On Death Row, You’ve Asked to Die, But the State Won’t Kill You
Despite their hard-stance bluster, death penalty states rarely impose the ultimate sentence, even if you’re the prisoner and you ask them to.
The Top 5 Longreads of the Week
This week, we’re sharing stories from Lizzie Presser, Linda Villarosa, Maurice Chammah, Mike Giglio, and Will Storr.