Penn Valley Common Read: Just Mercy

An October 2014 interview with Bryan Stevenson on NPR's Fresh Air program. Audio, 39 minutes.

"In an engaging and personal talk, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson shares some hard truths about America's justice system, starting with a massive imbalance along racial lines: a third of the country's black male population has been incarcerated at some point in their lives." March 2012. Video, 24 minutes.

PBS's Bill Moyers interviews Bryan Stevenson in 2010, on the anniversary of the Martin Luther King, Jr., assassination. Video, 47 minutes. Includes written transcript.

Frontline explores what happens when we lock up juvenile offenders in adult prisons. Focuses on the story of Alonza Thomas — sent to adult prison in California at age 16 — and how spending over a decade behind bars impacted him.

A two-video series. Part one, "Solitary Nation" explores the harsh realities of solitary confinement. Part two, "Prison State," is an intimate look at the cycle of mass incarceration in America and one state's effor to reverse the trend.

How reliable is the science behind forensics? Frontline investigates the flaws in some of the best-known tools in forensic science.

In this joint investigation with ProPublica and NPR, FRONTLINE correspondent A.C. Thompson unearths more than 20 child death cases in which people were jailed on medical evidence that was later found unreliable or flat-out wrong.

In over 1,300 counties across America, elected coroners, many with no medical or scientific background, are in charge of death investigations. Nationwide there is a severe shortage of competent forensic pathologists to do autopsies. The rate of autopsies - the gold standard of death investigation - has plummeted over the decades. As a result, not only do murderers go free and innocent people go to jail, but the crisis in death investigation in America is also a threat to public health.

An episode exploring false confessions. Why would four innocent men confess to a brutal crime they didn’t commit? Ofra Bikel investigates the conviction of four Navy sailors for the rape and murder of a Norfolk, Va., woman.

Did Texas execute an innocent man? Several controversial death penalty cases are currently under examination in Texas and in other states, but it's the 2004 execution of Cameron Todd Willingham -- convicted for the arson deaths of his three young children -- that's now at the center of the national debate. With unique access to those closest to the case, FRONTLINE examines the Willingham conviction in light of new science that raises doubts about whether the fire at the center of the case was really arson at all. The film meticulously examines the evidence used to convict Willingham, provides an in-depth portrait of those most impacted by the case, and explores the explosive implications of the execution of a possibly innocent man.

A film that explores what happens to mentally ill offenders when they leave prison. It's an intimate look at the lives of the seriously mentally ill as they struggle to remain free.

The United States is one of the only countries in the world that allows children under 18 to be sentenced to life without parole. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International report that more than 2,000 inmates are currently serving life without parole in the United States for crimes committed when they were juveniles; in the rest of the world, there are only 12 juveniles serving the same sentence. Frontline producer Ofra Bikel travels to Colorado to profile five individuals sentenced to life without parole as juveniles.

Fewer than 55,000 Americans currently receive treatment in psychiatric hospitals. Meanwhile, almost 10 times that number -- nearly 500,000 -- mentally ill men and women are serving time in U.S. jails and prisons. As sheriffs and prison wardens become the unexpected and often ill-equipped caretakers of this burgeoning population, they raise a troubling new concern: Have America's jails and prisons become its new asylums?

EJI collaborated with renowned artist Molly Crabapple on this animated video, which unflinchingly explores America’s brutal history of lynching and racial terror. The video portrays the violent aftermath of the Civil War, when racial terror and lynching were used to create racial hierarchy, disenfranchisement, and oppression against African Americans despite emancipation.

Slavery by Another Name “resets” our national clock with a singular astonishing fact: Slavery in America didn’t end 150 years ago, with Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Based on Douglas A. Blackmon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, the film illuminates how in the years following the Civil War, insidious new forms of forced labor emerged in the American South, persisting until the onset of World War II. Full-length movie.

A segment from the 60 Minutes news program. In an incredible miscarriage of justice, a prosecutor admits his cowardice and indifference led to the wrongful murder conviction of a man sentenced to death. 30 years later, the man was exonerated.

A 48 Hours report chronicling the story of Ryan Ferguson, a Missouri teenager wrongfully convicted of murder in 2004 and exonerated in 2013. Video, 43:45.

John Oliver uses comedy on his show "Last Week Tonight" to explain the contradictions and problems he sees in America's bail system. Video, 17:49.

John Oliver uses comedy on his show "Last Week Tonight" to explain why he feels America's prison system is greatly flawed. Video, 17:42.

"Serial" is a podcast exploring a nonfiction story over multiple episodes. This first season investigates the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee in Baltimore, Maryland. Lee's ex-boyfriend, Adnan Masud Syed, was arrested and later convicted of the crime, but serious questions about his guilt still remain. Audio.

NPR investigates the effects of solitary confinement on individuals who have been released from prison and their families. Audio, 6:18.

Three unjustly convicted people who spent years in prison and then were exonerated tell 60 Minutes' Scott Pelley how they are adjusting to being free

Video from a police SUV and a business, obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, provide the most complete picture yet of a shooting in which a former St. Louis police officer is charged with murder. Included are store surveillance video of the attempt by Officers Jason Stockley and Brian Bianchi to arrest drug suspect Anthony Lamar Smith on Dec. 20, 2011, and a police recording of a pursuit that ends with a crash and Stockley shooting Smith.

THE TALK is a two-hour documentary about the increasingly necessary conversation taking place in homes and communities across the country between parents of color and their children, especially sons, about how to behave if they are ever stopped by the police. PBS, February 2017.

Domineque Ray, a Muslim death-row prisoner in Alabama, was denied a request to have his imam by his side before his execution. The case, which was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, is raising questions about religious liberty. WBUR, February 2019. Audio.