Articles

Critical devel­op­ments in the mod­ern his­to­ry of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States are exam­ined through a bio­graph­i­cal sketch of Anthony Amsterdam, one of the nation’s most respect­ed death penal­ty attor­neys and legal schol­ars, in the lat­est edi­tion of New York University’s Law School Magazine. Prof. Amsterdam argued Furman v. Georgia before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972, result­ing in the over­turn­ing of all death penal­ty laws and the spar­ing of over 600 inmates on…

The Dallas Morning News called the death penal­ty​“the great­est moral chal­lenge fac­ing law­mak­ers today.” In an edi­to­r­i­al address­ing con­cerns about Texas’ cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem, the paper not­ed the​“dis­tinct and unac­cept­able pos­si­bil­i­ty of dead­ly error,” and called on law­mak­ers to impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions while the sys­tem is stud­ied. The edi­to­r­i­al made sev­er­al sug­ges­tions as part of a​“fresh look” at the death penal­ty, including the…

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is urg­ing the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Texas Governor Rick Perry to spare the life of Kenneth Foster (pic­tured), whose exe­cu­tion is sched­uled for August 30. Foster was sen­tenced to death under the Texas Law of Parties that per­mits a per­son involved in a crime to be held account­able for the actions com­mit­ted by some­one else. In this case, Texas main­tains that Foster deserves the death penal­ty because he should have anticipated that…

The July 2007 issue of Scientific American mag­a­zine con­tains both an arti­cle dis­cussing the med­ical impli­ca­tions of lethal injec­tion and an edi­to­r­i­al dis­cussing the humane­ness of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment gen­er­al­ly. The edi­to­r­i­al sug­gests that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment​“can nev­er be any­thing but inhu­mane,” and offers the opin­ion that it is​“wrong” and an​“out­rage.” But it fur­ther states that even those who believe the death penal­ty is accept­able, should agree that…

The U.S. Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Uttecht v. Brown on June 4, 2007 appears to enhance the state’s abil­i­ty to remove poten­tial jurors with doubts about the death penal­ty. But by expand­ing the class of peo­ple who can­not serve on cap­i­tal juries, the deci­sion may ulti­mate­ly ren­der the death penal­ty invalid as juries fail to rep­re­sent the true diver­si­ty of the American pub­lic. In a 5 – 4 deci­sion over­turn­ing an opin­ion writ­ten by Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S.

In a recent edi­to­r­i­al, the Los Angeles Times voiced con­cerns about a Louisiana Supreme Court deci­sion uphold­ing the death sen­tence of Patrick Kennedy for the rape of his 8‑year-old step­daugh­ter. The paper said the Louisiana court’s deci­sion to allow the death penal­ty in such cas­es could lead states to seek the death penal­ty for oth­er non-mur­der crimes, a devel­op­ment that would wors­en an already dys­func­tion­al death penal­ty sys­tem. The edi­to­r­i­al not­ed: The United…

In a guest col­umn pub­lished in the Jurist, for­mer FBI Director William S. Sessions under­scored the impor­tance of mak­ing DNA test­ing avail­able for those fac­ing exe­cu­tion. He also encour­aged states to thor­ough­ly review their cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tems and to make reforms to ensure greater reli­a­bil­i­ty. DNA test­ing, he not­ed, has revealed that police often do not have the right sus­pect in seri­ous crimes. In about 25% of the cas­es where DNA was…

The lat­est issue of Scientific American con­tains an arti­cle about the sci­ence of anes­the­si­ol­o­gy, not­ing that​“the med­ical spe­cial­ty of anes­the­si­ol­o­gy has evolved into a sophis­ti­cat­ed art form.” The mag­a­zine reports that the sci­en­tif­ic under­stand­ing of how anes­thet­ic drugs actu­al­ly work and how to make them bet­ter has lagged behind most oth­er areas of drug devel­op­ment, a short­com­ing that has result­ed in safe­ty con­cerns. Episodes of awareness during…

Noting that they​“can­not rec­on­cile the fact that [the death penal­ty] is both imper­fect and irre­versible,” the Dallas Morning News has called on Texas to aban­don cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The paper, which has long sup­port­ed the death penal­ty, changed its posi­tion after care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of mount­ing evi­dence that the state has wrong­ly con­vict­ed a num­ber of defen­dants in cap­i­tal tri­als and has like­ly exe­cut­ed at least one man who…

The Sentinel news­pa­per of Pennsylvania is the lat­est paper to edi­to­ri­al­ly con­clude that the death penal­ty should be abol­ished. Shortly after it pub­lished an inves­tiga­tive piece out­lin­ing the inef­fec­tive­ness of Pennsylvania’s death penal­ty, the news­pa­per edi­to­ri­al­ized that the state’s cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment laws are​“use­less” and that the​“pen­du­lum is swing­ing away from Pennsylvania’s posi­tion on a law it can­not even exe­cute.” The Central Pennsylvania-based…