Articles

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 States is vir­tu­al­ly alone among advanced democ­ra­cies in per­mit­ting cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. But wide­spread ambiva­lence about imposing…

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 avail­able and a sus­pect had been arrest­ed, test­ing showed that the wrong per­son was being pur­sued. He applauded…

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 oper­a­tions while under gen­er­al anes­the­sia, even when admin­is­tered by trained pro­fes­sion­als, are report­ed by one or two of every 1,000 patients. The…

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 was inno­cent. The edi­to­r­i­al announc­ing the paper’s pol­i­cy shift stat­ed, ​“This board has lost con­fi­dence that the state of Texas can guarantee…

Anderson Cooper 360 Blog — Monday, April 09, 2007

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 news­pa­per not­ed that cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment has failed to deter crime, has lost favor with the pub­lic, risks inno­cent lives, and pro­longs the suf­fer­ing of vic­tims’ family…

What does the cross tell us about the ethics of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment?by Tobias WinrightSojourners Magazine April 2007

After decades of main­tain­ing a posi­tion that the gov­ern­ment should have the legal right to impose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the Chicago Tribune is now call­ing for abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. Noting con­cerns about inno­cence, the arbi­trary nature of the pun­ish­ment, and the pub­lic’s shift away from the death penal­ty, the Tribune announced on March 25 that, ​“The evi­dence of mis­takes, the evi­dence of arbi­trary deci­sions, the sober­ing knowl­edge that gov­ern­ment can’t pro­vide cer­tain­ty that the inno­cent will not be put to death – all that prompts this call for an end to…

by Vicki Schieber and Carolyn Leming Feb. 16, 2007 The GazetteWe write as moth­ers who have been scarred by the death penalty.Our sto­ries are very dif­fer­ent, but they are both sto­ries of jus­tice gone wrong. They are sto­ries that con­vince us the cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment sys­tem in Maryland and across the coun­try is bro­ken beyond repair.

In a recent Dallas Morning News edi­to­r­i­al, the paper not­ed the incon­gruity between the state apol­o­giz­ing to a prison inmate who was freed fol­low­ing DNA test­ing, and its aggres­sive pur­suit of irrev­o­ca­ble exe­cu­tions. The paper stat­ed that ​“human error is an inher­ent part” of the jus­tice sys­tem and called on leg­is­la­tors to enact a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions until the state can review the accu­ra­cy and fair­ness of its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment process, because ​“For the con­demned, evi­dence of an error could come too late.” The paper wrote: The prison door has…