May 15, 2026
Doubts about the guilt of Roderick Rankin, an Arkansas man sentenced to death for murdering three members of his ex-girlfriend’s family, have grown since a pastor said Rankin's brother Rodney confessed to the killings. His case sits at the intersection of actual innocence claims, false confessions, intellectual disability and federal habeas law. When the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case earlier this month, it left many of those questions unresolved.