Articles

By Sujoy DharOct 29, 2007IPSBRUSSELS — On March 23, 1931, an Indian Sikh named Bhagat Singh attained mar­tyr­dom when he was hanged by the British for his role in the mil­i­tant free­dom strug­gle against the colo­nial rulers.About 75 years lat­er, Professor Jagmohan Singh, a nephew of the lib­er­a­tion hero, preach­es peace and mer­cy as he joins a world­wide cam­paign, espe­cial­ly in Europe, by his Sikh com­mu­ni­ty against death penal­ty. The life and work of Indian free­dom fight­er Bhagat Singh and his death by hang­ing in Lahore (now Pakistan) at the…

By ALISON LEIGH COWAN October 28, 2007New York Times

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 Mental Disability and Capital Punishment: A More Rational Approach to a Disturbing Subject By Ronald J. Tabak …

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” war­rant­ed to pro­tect against wrong­ful con­vic­tions could mean the state’s first exe­cu­tion is more than a decade away.

Critical devel­op­ments in the mod­ern his­to­ry of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States are exam­ined through a bio­graph­i­cal sketch of Anthony Amsterdam (pic­tured), 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 death row. The arti­cle, ​“A Man Against the Machine” by Nadya Labi, recounts Tony…

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 for­ma­tion of an inno­cence com­mis­sion, the elim­i­na­tion of death sen­tences for defen­dants who did not per­son­al­ly take a life, and the expansion…

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 a pas­sen­ger in his vehi­cle, Mauriceo Brown, would exit the…

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 it not be car­ried out cru­el­ly. The edi­to­r­i­al calls for a renew­al of pub­lic dis­cus­sion of the death penal­ty in all…

June 17, 2007 The Daily PilotMany aca­d­e­mics in recent years have been argu­ing that their stud­ies prove the death penal­ty deters mur­der. The var­i­ous stud­ies show that between 3 and 18 lives could be saved by exe­cut­ing a con­vict­ed killer. Critics ques­tion the data, say­ing that the experts made mis­takes in their method­ol­o­gy. What do you think of this recent data? Has it affect­ed your posi­tion on the issue? Judaism has always believed in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment based upon Biblical Law. A man must stand tri­al accord­ing to due process of…

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. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (an out­spo­ken sup­port­er of…