Hello and welcome to the last episode of the Intelligence for 2019. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

At around this time, the Economist selects its country of the year. We take a tour around the foreign department

to find out which nation our journalists think has improved the most in 2019.

And the Democratic Republic of Congo has some of the worst roads on the planet.

So commodities such as beer travel down the Congo River. Our correspondent

endures a long and loud journey between the brewery and far-flung bars.

But first, as the year draws to a close, our top story takes a step away from the news to get an

unusual look into America's criminal justice system. There are more than 2,500 people on death row

in the United States. Drive 40 miles north of Houston, Texas to the city of Conroe,

and you'll meet a man who offers some of them hope. His name is Richard Reiner, and he is a death row

sleuth. Our Midwest correspondent Adam Roberts spent some time with him.

So Richard Reiner is a handsome grandfather figure. He has slick black hair. His muscular arms

shoulder, a Rolex on one arm. He had gold rimmed glasses on. He's a jovial man. He's quick to

chuckle when we talked. He is a hardworking loner. He works on his own. He loves reading books about

crime. His office is crammed with souvenirs of cases he's worked on newspaper clippings and thick

piles of case files. Manila enveloped stuffed with documentation. Everyone has something to hide.

He lives in Conroe, which is very close to Livingston, which is where the death row is, where

people are kept as they wait for their execution. And he spent decades driving up to death row.

And he sits and he speaks a great length to the inmates as they wait to be put to death.

He says, I want to get into their soul. They know they're going to die. And I know they're going to die.

And sometimes they cry. And sometimes I cry. I know they're tough guys.

And I know I can be a tough guy if I need to be, but you still have feelings.

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