by Craig Aaron

About the author: Craig Aaron is the features editor of In These Times,a biweekly progressive news and opinion journal.

By the time you are reading this, the United States has probably executed its five hundredth prisoner since 1976. If not, it's just a matter of days before Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina or Arkansas straps Tuan Nguyen, Joseph Faulder, Joe Truesdale, Robert Robbins or another of the nation's more than 3,500 death row inmates onto the gurney or into the electric chair and kills them.

Number 500 easily could have been any one of the 29 former death row inmates who nervously lined up backstage at the National Conference of Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty on Nov. 14, 1998. Each of these men and women were once sentenced to die; some came within hours of being...