Dateline NBC on NBC

Exploring the reasons why, two days before he left office on Jan. 11, 2003, Illinois governor George Ryan commuted the sentences of the state's 171 death-row inmates. This emotional report charts a chain of events that began when Northwestern University journalism students blew open one case. There's no “balance” aside from testimony of victims' families at clemency hearings; mostly, death-penalty foes, journalists and former death-row inmates describe and decry its unfairness.