Articles

Professor Michael Meltsner, who worked as an attor­ney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in its efforts to chal­lenge the death penal­ty in the 1960s and 70s, recent­ly assessed the U.S.‘s appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty over the past 30 years. He not­ed that today’s death penal­ty sys­tem is​“bro­ken” and fails to make the nation a safer soci­ety. Writing in the Boston Globe,…

In a recent op-ed, Jack Fuller, for­mer edi­tor and pub­lish­er of the Chicago Tribune, called for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Citing a series of mis­takes by eye­wit­ness­es, police and foren­sic experts, he stat­ed that the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is too deeply flawed to entrust with car­ry­ing out exe­cu­tions. Pointing to the like­ly inno­cence of Carlos DeLuna, a Texas man who was exe­cut­ed in 1989, Fuller con­clud­ed that the death penal­ty should be abol­ished because​“no…

Dr. Orin Guidry, pres­i­dent of the 40,000-member American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA), issued a pub­lic state­ment strong­ly urg­ing mem­bers to​“steer clear” of any par­tic­i­pa­tion in exe­cu­tions by lethal injec­tion. In a four-page​“Message from the President,” Guidry not­ed that anes­the­si­ol­o­gists have been​“reluc­tant­ly thrust into the mid­dle” of the legal con­tro­ver­sy over lethal injec­tions. In recent months, the pro­ce­dures being used around the United States…

Recent edi­to­ri­als in The Washington Post and Roanoke Times praised Virginia Governor Tim Kaine’s deci­sion to delay the exe­cu­tion of Percy Walton in order to ensure that he is sane enough to exe­cute. The papers not­ed that Kaine’s deci­sion, which drew crit­i­cism from some death penal­ty advo­cates, demon­strat­ed​“com­pe­tence in law­ful­ly apply­ing the death penal­ty” and was…

Reversing its long-stand­ing sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the Spokane Spokesman-Review recent­ly pub­lished an edi­to­r­i­al call­ing for an end to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States. The paper not­ed that the deci­sion to change its stance on the death penal­ty came after care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion of grow­ing evi­dence that the news­pa­per’s​“expec­ta­tions of fair­ness and jus­tice” are not being met and that the death penal­ty’s​“draw­backs now out­weigh its merits.”…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Asbury Park Press, a news­pa­per that for­mer­ly sup­port­ed cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, called on New Jersey pol­i­cy­mak­ers to aban­don the state’s cost­ly death penal­ty and replace it with the​“sure and swift” sen­tence of life with­out parole. Stating that New Jersey has wast­ed mil­lions of dol­lars on the death penal­ty, but has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since it was rein­stat­ed in1982, the edi­to­r­i­al not­ed: Can it real­ly be 22 years since Robert O.

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in Nature, the inter­na­tion­al week­ly jour­nal of sci­ence, called on sci­en­tists and doc­tors to refuse to par­tic­i­pate in executions: ​“Don’t advise, don’t pre­scribe, don’t inject. Let the death penal­ty die a nat­ur­al death.” Noting that courts are now con­sid­er­ing whether the death penal­ty by lethal injec­tion should be out­lawed as inhu­mane, the edi­to­r­i­al points out that the procedure was…

A recent op-ed by Theodore Shaw, pres­i­dent and direc­­tor-coun­sel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, urged a full and fair inves­ti­ga­tion into the case of Ruben Cantu, a Texas man who may have been inno­cent of the mur­der for which he was exe­cut­ed in 1993. Shaw not­ed that Cantu’s case was​“fraught with sys­temic errors,” includ­ing the fact that his con­vic­tion was based on a sin­gle eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion by a man who has said he was pressured…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the La Crosse Tribune urged Wisconsin leg­is­la­tors to main­tain the state’s ban on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­to­r­i­al dis­cour­aged the state from rein­stat­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment because it does not deter crime and is often unfair­ly applied, stat­ing that there is no need to bring back the death penal­ty because the state already has the sen­tence of life with­out parole. Legislators recent­ly vot­ed to hold a non-bind­ing ref­er­en­dum on restoring…

The Washington State Supreme Court recent­ly came with­in one vote of effec­tive­ly abol­ish­ing the state’s death penal­ty when it ruled in the case of death row inmate Dayva Cross. Cross is on death row for the mur­der of his wife and her two teenage daugh­ters. Attorneys for Cross had argued that their client should not be exe­cut­ed because killers who had com­mit­ted worse crimes had been spared the death penal­ty. The 2003 case of Green River Killer Gary Ridgway, who received a life…