This month we mark the 20th anniversary of the adoption of a key treaty that aims to bring about the abolition of the death penalty.
Deborah W. Denno | Posted 12.09.2009 | Politics
Over the decades, lethal injection has never met its purported goal of humaneness. And Ohio's latest method of using a single-drug formula does nothing to correct this.
Christopher Brauchli | Posted 12.04.2009 | Politics
Some innocent dead men walking can now take hope. Two cases have been decided in the last four months that suggest it may actually make a difference whether or not the visitor to the death chamber is guilty or innocent.
Frank Schaeffer | Posted 12.04.2009 | Politics
The ideological link between the members of the Family on C-Street to the Ugandan fascists wanting to kill gays can be best summed up by looking at several quotes from RJ Rushdoony.
AP | CHRISTOPHER BODEEN | Posted 11.24.2009 | World
BEIJING — China executed a dairy farmer and a milk salesman Tuesday for their roles in the sale of contaminated baby formula – severe puni...
AP | TOM HAYS | Posted 11.20.2009 | New York
NEW YORK — New York juries are often loath to impose the death penalty, even for terrorists. In fact, a jury spared the lives of two Osama bin ...
Beau Friedlander | Posted 11.21.2009 | Politics
There is no solving the problem of mass murder. We can only hope to move past it, and perhaps that the spiritual and emotional wounds of 9/11 will turn into the proud flesh of a new humanist outlook.
Craig Alan Silverman | Posted 11.16.2009 | Denver
The government's easier path toward execution is through a tribunal, and yet Holder has chosen the risky path of seeking the death penalty in New York. This is political correctness run amok.
Chicago Sun-Times | DAVE McKINNEY AND ABDON M. PALLASCH | Posted 11.12.2009 | Chicago
GOP gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan issued his first outright apology Thursday for wrongfully putting two men on Death Row instead of prosecuting the...
Judge H. Lee Sarokin | Posted 11.12.2009 | Chicago
Cook County prosecutors continue their relentless attempt to discredit the work of the students of the Medill Innocence Project in their efforts to exonerate Anthony McKinney.
Chad Stokes Urmston | Posted 11.12.2009 | Impact
Every morning for the last 18 years, Troy Davis has woken up on death row, despite the absence of evidence. This is a flagship case for why the death penalty is wrong and we must continue to advocate for its abolition.
Tamar Abrams | Posted 11.10.2009 | Living
You had to live in the DC area that horrible month to know the impact the Sniper had on us. Fear was a constant companion.
Louis Klarevas | Posted 11.18.2009 | Politics
As a nation, we face a dilemma when it comes to capital punishment: No one wants to see an innocent person put to death -- but some criminals deserve to die for their offenses.
Diann Rust-Tierney | Posted 10.30.2009 | Politics
I'm scared by the real life capital punishment system. As of this week, 139 individuals have been exonerated after being sentenced to die -- and some came terrifyingly close to execution.
Robert Amsterdam | Posted 10.29.2009 | World
Why, with so much going for him and his country, should the president of Brazil make such controversial choices in his friends? The logic of the relationship with Iran is perplexing.
AP | By HENRY SANDERSON | Posted 10.27.2009 | World
BEIJING -- Two people have been put to death for their roles in deadly protests last year in the Chinese-controlled region of Tibet, the first known e...
Elizabeth Lynch | Posted 10.26.2009 | World
The true test of a society's criminal justice system is how well it protects society's most vulnerable.
David A. Love | Posted 10.24.2009 | Politics
Cameron Todd Willingham is now a free man, but unfortunately it took death to release him from the confines of his prison bars.
Jeff Schweitzer | Posted 10.21.2009 | Politics
Carl Sagan famously said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The claim that killing prisoners acts as a deterrent or keeps police safe is indeed extraordinary.
AP | KAREN HAWKINS | Posted 10.20.2009 | Chicago
CHICAGO — A Chicago jury decided Tuesday that a former handyman will spend the rest of his life in prison, rather than be sent to death row, for...
AP | CHRISTOPHER BODEEN | Posted 10.13.2009 | World
BEIJING — A court in China's far western Xinjiang region sentenced six men to death Monday for murder and other crimes committed during ethnic r...
Christopher Brauchli | Posted 10.14.2009 | Politics
It is so easy to view the death penalty as nothing more than a means to an end that we sometimes overlook the fact that it shouldn't be an unpleasant experience for the person involved.
Rob Fishman | Posted 10.07.2009 | Media
It's clear that Cameron Todd Willingham was (mis)tried by a kangaroo court, but will justice be better served by the media zoo that's ensued?
Judge H. Lee Sarokin | Posted 10.05.2009 | Politics
Despite our personal desire for vengeance and punishment, it should not be the function or policy of the government to impose the death penalty.
Rachel Farris | Posted 10.05.2009 | Politics
As the case against Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004, sinks like a rock, the truth has started to float to the top and the rats are streaming out from all sides, led by none other than Texas Governor Rick Perry.
Navi Pillay | Posted 12.16.2009 | World