Nation Topics - Death Penalty | The Nation

Abolishing the death penalty was one of Coretta Scott King's signature issues. The irony is that Georgia remains one of the leading practitioners of the death penalty.

It seemed too bizarre to be anything but apocryphal, but, hey, I heard it on NPR: William Poole, a high school junior from Kentucky, was taken into custody and charged with threatening to commit

The immediate outcome of the Supreme Court's 5-to-4 decision in Roper v.

A forum on the juvenile death penalty.

Minors like Malvo fare poorly in Virginia.

"Our capital system is haunted by the demon of error," Illinois Governor
George Ryan said on January 11, clearing his state's death row as his
final act of office.

1. It is morally reprehensible to take a life, and it is especially reprehensible for the state to do so.

Mumia's Appeal

After decades of legal and political maneuvering, the twenty-year-old
death-penalty case of black journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal is entering a
critical stage.

Politicians and courts are taking their cues from growing public
opposition.

The essential case for the abolition of capital punishment has long been complete, whether it is argued as an overdue penal reform, as a shield against the arbitrary and the irreparable or as part of the case against "big government."