Review: 'Death Row Stories'

There are a number of reasons why the death penalty is a bad idea. But the primary reason is there are prisoners on death row who are innocent. I'm not arguing that most of the prisoners on death row are innocent or even many of them. I have no way of knowing the percentage. But without a doubt, there are innocent people who have been killed and others who have spent decades on death row for a crime they didn't commit. They were convicted in the days before precise DNA results or because local law enforcement officials didn't do their job. The luckiest ones are eventually released after their cases are taken by innocence projects. But even these prisoners end up spending decades in prison for a crime they didn't commit. Narrated by Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon and featuring stories told by current and former death row inmates, HLN's "Death Row Stories" has become a stellar showcase for this issue in its first two seasons.

Season three of HLN's "Death Row Stories" premieres Sunday, and the case highlighted is as horrifying and sad as any true crime case you'll watch this year. The episode is entitled "Two Brothers" and it focuses on the case of step-brothers Leon Brown, 15 and Henry McCollum, 19, who confess to the murder of an 11-year-old girl. The murder is brutal and cruel, with the person responsible raping her several ways and then suffocating her by wrapping her underwear around a stick and pushing it down her throat until she stopped breathing.

The case seemed like a slam dunk for local police in North Carolina. They quickly arrested Henry McCollum after he "confessed" to police that he and his brother murdered the girl. And they were quickly tried and convicted, despite the fact that both boys had functional IQs of less than 60. But things only got worse for the two boys. While they were on death row, at least they were together. That changed after a new trial still found Henry guilty of murder, but convicted Leon of less severe charges. That change sent Leon a different prison, where he was released into the general population to be beaten and raped by fellow prisoners.

The two men stayed behind bars for nearly thirty years until a state innocence commission began to look at their case. And like peeling layers away from a corrupt onion, the commission found example after example of misconduct and prosecutorial deception. I won't give away the final results of the investigation, but it's likely you'll walk away from the episode with an equal mix of anger and sadness.

"Death Row Diaries" airs Sundays at 8:00 pm ET/PT on HLN.