Articles

The Richmond Times-Dispatch, a key paper in the Virginia state cap­i­tal, has long sup­port­ed the death penal­ty. But their recent edi­to­r­i­al takes the posi­tion that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment​“achieves no legit­i­mate goals that can­not be achieved by a life sen­tence with no pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.” The paper equates the death penal­ty with the state​“play­ing God.” The full text of the edi­to­r­i­al fol­lows: Del. Frank Hargrove, one of the General Assembly’s Don Quixotes, hopes the…

A recent arti­cle in Time Magazine by Editor-at-large David Von Drehle exam­ines the cur­rent state of the death penal­ty in the United States at a time when the Supreme Court is con­sid­er­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the most wide­ly used method of exe­cu­tion – lethal injec­tion. Von Drehle writes,​“In a per­fect world, per­haps, the gov­ern­ment would­n’t wait 30 years and sev­er­al hun­dred exe­cu­tions to deter­mine whether an exe­cu­tion method makes sense. But the world of…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, The New York Times praised New Jersey’s replace­ment of the death penal­ty with a sen­tence of life with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole. The Times wrote,​“It took 31 years, but the moral bank­rupt­cy, social imbal­ance, legal imprac­ti­cal­i­ty and ulti­mate futil­i­ty of the death penal­ty has final­ly pen­e­trat­ed the con­sciences of law­mak­ers in one of the 37 states that arro­gates to itself the right to exe­cute human beings.” The Times noted the…

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al enti­tled​“The Myth of Deterrence,” the Dallas Morning News point­ed to the many rea­sons why the death penal­ty does not deter mur­ders: a major­i­ty of mur­ders can be clas­si­fied as irra­tional acts, and the per­pe­tra­tors are unlike­ly to have con­sid­ered the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a death sen­tences before and dur­ing the crime; those who com­mit pre­med­i­tat­ed mur­der are also unlike­ly to con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because it is…

The jour­nal of Criminology & Public Policy recent­ly asked lead­ing experts to rec­om­mend impor­tant pol­i­cy changes need­ed in the area of crim­i­nal jus­tice and to pro­vide the evi­dence to sup­port such change. Although most of the arti­cles addressed var­i­ous prison and treat­ment issues, the first arti­cle by Prof. James Acker of the University at Albany called for an imme­di­ate mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions. Prof. Acker exam­ines the United States’ long his­to­ry of grappling…

A recent Newsweek arti­cle by Evan Thomas and Martha Brant com­pares the his­tor­i­cal search for humane meth­ods of exe­cu­tion with the cur­rent decline in the use of the death penal­ty in the…

In a forth­com­ing arti­cle in the American Journal of Criminal Law, John H. Blume of Cornell Law School explores recent Supreme Court deci­sions that affect the guide­lines for effec­tive coun­sel for cap­i­tal defen­dants. Blume notes in​“It’s Like Déjà Vu All Over Again: Williams V. Taylor, Wiggins V. Smith, Rompilla V. Beard and a (Partial) Return to the Guidelines Approach to the Effective Assistance of Counsel” that despite the recog­ni­tion by researchers, lit­i­ga­tors, and judges of…

The most recent edi­tion of The Angolite, the nation’s largest prison news mag­a­zine, con­tains an arti­cle detail­ing nation­al death penal­ty trends and devel­op­ments. The piece also high­lights the impact of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment on fam­i­ly mem­bers and close friends of those fac­ing exe­cu­tion. It notes,​“Lost in the shad­ows of these cen­tral argu­ments is some­thing that defines us human beings: Taking care of our own. Unseen, unheard fam­i­ly mem­bers and close friends of those…

The Spring 2007 edi­tion of the American Bar Association​’s Human Rights quar­ter­ly fea­tures a series of arti­cles by out­stand­ing authors about the death penal­ty, includ­ing a 30-year ret­ro­spec­tive on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the U.S. The arti­cles con­tained in the pub­li­ca­tion are: A Thirty-Year Retrospective of the Death Penalty By Stephen F. Hanlon Monitoring Death Sentencing Decisions: The Challenges and Barriers to Equity By Glenn L. Pierce and Michael L. Radelet …

The Witchita Eagle recent­ly called on Kansas law­mak­ers to recon­sid­er the death penal­ty, stat­ing:​“At some point, giv­en the legal prob­lems and the lack of exe­cu­tions, a death penal­ty stops mak­ing sense for Kansas.” The paper said the law has cost tax­pay­ers mil­lions of dol­lars with­out the ben­e­fit of deter­ring crime. Moreover, the state has not had a sin­gle exe­cu­tion since cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment was rein­stat­ed in 1994, and the​“care and caution”…