Religion

When Lance Shockley was exe­cut­ed in Missouri in October 2025, he request­ed the pres­ence of his daugh­ter, an ordained min­is­ter, in the exe­cu­tion cham­ber as his spir­i­tu­al advis­er. The Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) denied his request, and Mr. Shockley was exe­cut­ed. His case rep­re­sents one exam­ple of how states have applied the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 rul­ing in Ramirez v. Collier, a deci­sion that acknowl­edged the reli­gious rights of death-sentenced…

Glynn Simmons keeps a copy of his death war­rant, signed by the Oklahoma gov­er­nor 50 years ago, order­ing his exe­cu­tion in the elec­tric chair. He was 22 years old at the time, con­vict­ed of a mur­der he did not com­mit. Forty-eight years lat­er, after becom­ing the longest-incar­­cer­at­ed wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed per­son in U.S. his­to­ry, Mr. Simmons’ sto­ry has become cen­tral to a grow­ing con­ser­v­a­tive move­ment ques­tion­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment — one that Nan Tolson is…

In com­ments to reporters on September 30, 2025, Pope Leo XIV said that sup­port­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was incon­sis­tent with being pro-life. The Pope was respond­ing to ques­tions about Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich’s plan to hon­or Senator Dick Durbin for his work on immi­grant human rights issues. The announce­ment drew crit­i­cism from sev­er­al American bish­ops who object­ed based on Sen. Durbin’s sup­port for legal­ized abor­tion. ​“Someone who says,​‘I’m against abor­tion’ but…

Murder vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers hold a wide range of views about what jus­tice means. For some, the death penal­ty holds the promise of clo­sure, while for oth­ers, it is a source of con­tin­ued trau­ma and uncer­tain­ty. In two recent cas­es, vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers have pub­licly expressed their oppo­si­tion to the death penal­ty, cit­ing their reli­gious views and need to for­give. Will Berry was just 11 years old when Geoffrey West shot and killed his moth­er, Margaret Parrish…