For the third installment of the Takeaway Deep Dive, host Melissa Harris-Perry and friend/collaborator Dorian Warren are tackling the important topic of the American Death Penalty. Joining our hosts to discuss the racial and class inequalities infecting application of the Death Penalty is Samuel Spital, Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. They speak with Sabrina Butler Smith, the first woman exonerated from death row, about her experience of being wrongly convicted of murdering her infant and sent to death row in Mississippi. We also get a look from a victim’s perspective through a conversation with Jennifer Pinckney, Widow of Rev. Clementa Pinckney. Dylan Roof murdered her husband, Rev Clementa Pickney. Finally, the hosts explore the processes and procedures of putting inmates to death with Lynden Harris, Director of Hidden Voices and Editor of "Right Here, Right Now: Life Stories from America’s Death Row" and Sister Helen Prejean, anti-death penalty activist, spiritual advisor to men and women on death row, and author of "Dead Man Walking," "The Death of Innocents," and "The River of Fire."
For transcript, see segment page.