Articles

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram announced a change in its stance on the death penal­ty in a recent edi­to­r­i­al mark­ing the 500^th exe­cu­tion in Texas. While the news­pa­per had pre­vi­ous­ly endorsed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, it now sup­ports the abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. The edi­tors said that moral grounds alone are enough to war­rant end­ing the death penal­ty, but they also cit­ed a vari­ety of prob­lems in Texas’s use of the death penal­ty, includ­ing geo­graph­i­cal and racial disparities in…

In a recent op-ed in the Baltimore Sun, for­mer FBI Director William Sessions (pic­tured) under­scored the impor­tance of reli­able FBI foren­sic analy­sis in con­vict­ing the guilty and exon­er­at­ing the inno­cent. Sessions pro­vid­ed the exam­ple of Willie Jerome Manning, who received a last-minute stay of exe­cu­tion in Mississippi in order to allow time to con­duct test­ing on DNA evi­dence that could exon­er­ate him. Manning was con­vict­ed in 1994 based on FBI…

A June 3 edi­to­r­i­al in the Sun Sentinel called on Florida Governor Rick Scott (pic­tured) to veto the Timely Justice Act, a bill passed by the leg­is­la­ture ear­li­er this year that would accel­er­ate exe­cu­tions. The bill requires the gov­er­nor to sign a death war­rant with­in 30 days of a Supreme Court review, with an exe­cu­tion to fol­low with­in 180 days. According to the edi­to­r­i­al, flaws in the sys­tem, evi­denced by death row exon­er­a­tions, should be sufficient…

The Kansas City Star recent­ly called for an end to the death penal­ty in Kansas and Missouri. The edi­tors wrote, ​“The arc of his­to­ry is bend­ing toward jus­tice when it comes to the death penal­ty, and there’s no good rea­son Missouri and Kansas should lag behind and con­tin­ue to be on the wrong side of both his­to­ry and jus­tice.” The high costs of imple­ment­ing cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and the risks of wrong­ful exe­cu­tions were among the reasons…

Colorado recent­ly set an exe­cu­tion date in August for Nathan Dunlap, who has been con­vict­ed of mul­ti­ple mur­ders. This would be first exe­cu­tion in the state in 16 years. In an edi­to­r­i­al, the Aurora Sentinel rec­om­mend­ed that the gov­er­nor spare his life, not because of doubts about his guilt, but because of doubts about oth­er aspects of the process that led to his death sen­tence: ​“There is sim­ply too much doubt about the effec­tive­ness of the death penal­ty. There is too…

An edi­to­r­i­al in the Miami Herald called on Florida Governor Rick Scott (pic­tured) to veto a bill recent­ly passed by the leg­is­la­ture requir­ing the gov­er­nor to sign a death war­rant with­in 30 days after state Supreme Court review, with the exe­cu­tion tak­ing place with­in 180 days after that. The edi­to­r­i­al list­ed sev­er­al death row inmates who were exon­er­at­ed after spend­ing more than 10 years on death row, and not­ed, ​“All of them might have been exe­cut­ed if the legislation…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Lincoln (Neb.) Journal Star high­light­ed some of the con­ser­v­a­tive argu­ments oppos­ing the death penal­ty. Edward Crane (pic­tured), founder of the CATO Institute, a lib­er­tar­i­an think tank, said, ​“My own view on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment is that it is moral­ly jus­ti­fied but that the gov­ern­ment is often so inept and cor­rupt that inno­cent peo­ple might die as a result. Thus, I per­son­al­ly oppose cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” The edi­to­r­i­al also quoted…

A recent edi­to­r­i­al in the Nebraska Star-Herald indi­cat­ed a shift in its posi­tion on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Although the paper has always sup­port­ed the death penal­ty in the past, its lat­est edi­to­r­i­al described the death penal­ty as ​“a mock­ery of jus­tice” and a ​“cha­rade.” The edi­tors con­tin­ued to express the belief that some mur­der­ers might deserve cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, but the infre­quen­cy and unpre­dictabil­i­ty of exe­cu­tions led them to con­clude that “[S]o…

The Dallas Morning News used the recent repeal of the death penal­ty in Maryland as an occa­sion to advo­cate for death-penal­ty reform in Texas. The edi­tors com­ment­ed on the over­all impro­pri­ety of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment: ​“At best, the death penal­ty is selec­tive­ly used state-sup­port­ed ret­ri­bu­tion, which has no place in a civ­i­lized soci­ety.” The edi­to­r­i­al sup­port­ed six pend­ing bills aimed at improv­ing the fair­ness of the death penal­ty. One bill would bar the…

Texas death-row inmate Andre Thomas has been diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia, and audi­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tions drove him to gouge out both of his eyes. Nevertheless, pros­e­cu­tors still believe he should be…