Plot Synopsis

Using one-on-one interviews with victims and their families, jurors, and the family of those on death row, LIFE AND DEATH ROW explores what it's like to live with the threat of the death chamber. Each one-hour episode focuses on a different aspect of the system: execution, trial and appeal. The first episode centers on two of the youngest men on death row in Texas, for whom execution day has arrived. Victim Nikki Daniels reflects on her kidnapping ordeal by murderer Richard Cobb and battles with her conflicting desires to forgive him, while the mother of death-row inmate Anthony Haynes fights to use the final 72 hours to halt her son's execution for the murder of a police officer. The second installment follows the trial of 26-year-old Guy Heinze Jr, with remarkable access to the jury members charged with reaching a verdict on allegations that Heinze beat his father, and seven members of his family, to death. As the trial progresses, there is legal maneuvring and a last-minute deal with defense attorneys to avoid a hung jury. The final episode follows the work of young law students at the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of Houston Law Center -- the last line of defense -- as they take on cases that have been discounted by state and federal appeals, known as crisis cases. Nat Geo aired the U.S. premiere of this series on Sunday, August 10, 2014 from 8-11pm ET/PT, showing all three episodes back to back.