Debbie Elliott

Nationwide, the number and pace of executions are down, but states are looking at alternative, previous methods after restrictions have increased making the drugs for lethal injection hard to obtain.

Gov. Rick Scott is reassigning 21 first-degree murder cases from State Attorney Aramis Ayala, who says seeking capital punishment is not in the best interest of justice.

The Flame Refluxer is essentially a big copper blanket: think Brillo pad of wool sandwiched between mesh. Using it while burning off oil yields less air pollution and residue that harms marine life.

A new lawsuit in Louisiana challenges the state's public defense system as unconstitutional. Indigent people there arrested for serious crimes are put on waiting lists to see a public defender.

A federal appeals court hears arguments in a suit challenging the state flag and its Confederate emblem. An African-American resident claims the flag amounts to state-sanctioned racial discrimination.

Entrepreneur Keitra Bates is opening a shared commercial kitchen to help keep culinary traditions alive on the city's gentrifying Westside.

Immigrant rights groups in New Orleans are organizing to resist Trump's move to deport people who are in the country illegally. But city and state leaders have conflicting positions.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley has tapped the state attorney general, Luther Strange, to replace Jeff Sessions, who is now U.S. attorney general, in the Senate. Strange had been investigating a sex scandal involving the governor.

Members of Atlanta's Hispanic community fear the effect of Trump's recent immigration orders on business, while other business leaders welcome the president's promise to roll back regulations.

Dylann Roof, 22, convicted of killing 9 church members in Charleston, spoke to the jury that's deciding whether he dies for the crimes. He said, "There's nothing wrong with me psychologically."

The penalty phase of the Dylann Roof Charleston, S.C., church shooting trial began Wednesday. The 22-year-old, who is representing himself and killed nine worshippers, addressed the jury for the first time.

Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty after Dylann Roof, who is white, was convicted in the shooting deaths of nine black parishioners of Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., last year.

A federal jury in Charleston, South Carolina has found Dylann Roof guilty of all 33 counts related to the killings of nine black worshippers at the Emanuel AME Church in 2015.

Testimony concluded Wednesday in the trial of Dylann Roof after jurors heard the testimony of Polly Sheppard, who survived the shooting at a church in Charleston, S.C.

It's a tense time in Charleston, S.C. The trial of accused church shooter Dylann Roof is underway, and another racially-charged trial involving a fatal police shooting recently ended in a hung jury.

Bibles and white tablecloths, as well as the bodies of victims and pools of blood, appear in photos of the Emanuel AME Church basement presented by prosecutors Thursday in Charleston, S.C.

The trial of Dylann Roof, who is accused of killing nine worshippers at a church in Charleston, S.C., begins Wednesday.

After a hung jury in one prominent race-related trial, and opening arguments scheduled to start in another, we explore the racial climate in Charleston, S.C.

A trial starts Monday over conditions in Alabama's prisons. Mentally ill inmates say they're denied basic care. Meanwhile, the Justice Department is conducting a civil rights probe into the prisons.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions is President-elect Donald Trump's pick for the nation's top law enforcement officer. Sessions' anti-immigrant views and past allegations of racism are sure to draw scrutiny.