Death Row

Director Werner Herzog meets Linda Carty, an inmate on America's death row, convicted of the murder of Joana Rodriguez, allegedly done in order to steal her four-day-old son.

Werner Herzog's second portrait of an American on death row features James Barnes. Sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, Barnes had already spent eight years behind bars when he became a practising Muslim. During Ramadan, he called in homicide detectives, and confessed to a previous murder of a woman. He is repentant, and accepts full responsibility, and does not appear to be the monster we might imagine.

Werner Herzog presents his final portraits of prisoners on death row. Joseph Garcia ended up in a fight when a jealous ex-boyfriend objected to the attention he was showing his former lover. Garcia stabbed him to death. He then went on to participate in a prison break masterminded by George Rivas, who shot a policeman whilst on the run. Garcia sees his execution as inevitable; Rivas was killed by the state in February 2012.

Werner Herzog looks at Hank Skinner, sentenced to death 18 years ago for stabbing his girlfriend and her disabled sons; he has had his execution scheduled three times. Once, Skinner was only minutes away from death, having been read his last rites and eaten his final meal. He has recently won a ground-breaking lawsuit at the Supreme Court, and gives us his account of his last few hours before the execution that wasn't.