death penalty

The death penalty, also known as capital punishment, is the sentencing of someone to death for a crime. A report from March 2011 found that the use of capital punishment is on the decline worldwide, while the United States is in the top five of countries carrying out the most death sentences. The other four are China, Iran, North Korea, and Yemen.

Although 16 states in the US have abolished the death penalty, the country has the fifth highest execution rate in the world. CNN reports that the US position on the death penalty is unlikely to change much in the coming years, with only about 30 percent of people opposed to executions and 64 percent of Americans supporting the death penalty in murder cases.

Due to the controversy surrounding the issue, there are many great blogs out there, although most of them are against the policy. An excellent blog against capital punishment is Terry Lenamon on the Death Penalty, written by a Miami lawyer who has participated in over 100 death penalty cases in the state of Florida. For general information about capital punishment, there's the Death Penalty Information Center.

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Original Technorati articles tagged “death penalty”

• in Entertainment
  The Exonerated 10 Year Anniversary with Stockard Channing, Delroy Lindo, Chris Sarandon and Brian Dennehy
  The Innocence Project in Collaboration with The Culture Project: The Exonerated, 10 Year Anniversary
  by goldensylph / on Sep 19, 2012
• in Football
  NCAA to Penn State: Prepare for the Death Penalty
  To his credit, the President of Penn State, Rod Erickson, has agreed to cooperate with the NCAA investigation.
  by stephengfm / on Nov 18, 2011
• in Football
  The Death Penalty - Penn State Needs It Now!
  They need to confess that Institutional Control has been lost at Penn State and the Death Penalty is needed.
  by stephengfm / on Nov 10, 2011

Latest blogosphere posts tagged “death penalty”

 

• Commute Nathan Dunlap’s death sentence, governor

  
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  By David A. Lane Guest Commentary At some point during the week of Aug. 18, in revenge for the murders of four innocent people, the state of Colorado will strap a now-helpless Nathan Dunlap to a gurney and inject poison into his body until he is dead. With the stroke of a pen, Gov. John Hickenlooper can put ...
  4 days ago

• Notable developments in penalty phase of Jodi Arias capital trial

  
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  As reported in this new USA Today article , the "sentencing hearing for convicted killer Jodi Arias ground to a halt Monday when her lawyers refused to call any witnesses and a judge refused their requests for a mistrial and to withdraw from the case." Here is more: Judge Sherry Stephens stopped proceedings and ...
  4 days ago

• Jodi Arias Trial Bombshell: Mistrial Denied As Defense Tries To Withdraw AGAIN In Open Court

  
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  As the death penalty sentencing phase for Jodi Arias began in court on Monday her defense team was denied a motion for mistrial and then dropped a bombshell when they asked the judge to allow them to withdraw again as her counsel. The jury found that Travis Alexander ’s brutal murder was “extremely cruel” ...
  4 days ago

• Speed Kills

  
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  Florida Governor Rick Scott (Photo Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images). Is Governor Rick Scott of Florida trying to speed up his state’s death penalty? He’s signing more death warrants (three executions are currently scheduled over the next month), and he’s considering a bill passed by the legislature that ...
  4 days ago

• Testimony: Man who drowned his kids confessed and then asked cops to tell their mother it was her fault

  
  CRIME — Authority: 694
  … A family photo was displayed at the boys funeral in August 2011. After Naim Rasool Muhammad confessed to police that he drowned … [ visit site to read more ]
  4 days ago

• Helen Prejean Keeps Campaigning for Repeal

  
  The StandDown Texas Project — Authority: 154
  "Sister Helen Prejeans passion to end the death penalty is a challenge to others," is the New Orleans Times-Picayune profile written by Sheila Stroup. Its available in a slightly abbreviated version, "After 2 decades, nuns crusade continues," via AP and...
  4 days ago

• Former Prosecutor Backs Dunlap Commutation

  
  The StandDown Texas Project — Authority: 154
  "COs Death Penalty System Too Broken to Use: Commute Dunlaps Sentence," is Richard Blochs essay at Huffington Post. Hes the former Arapahoe County Chief Deputy District Attorney. In the twenty years I spent with the Arapahoe County District Attorneys Office,...
  4 days ago

• Exoneree Curtis McCarty

  
  The StandDown Texas Project — Authority: 154
  Omaha World-Herald columnist Matthew Hansen writes, "Decades on death row drive death penalty fight." Heres the beginning of this must-read: Oklahoma is killing a man at midnight, and so as darkness falls, another man on H Block slips off his...
  4 days ago

• The Kansas Death Penalty Has Cobwebs

  
  The StandDown Texas Project — Authority: 154
  Thats the title of a lengthy report by Dave Helling for the Kansas City Star. It may be weeks before Kansans know if prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Kyle Flack, accused of killing four people in Franklin County...
  4 days ago

• Florida News & Commentary

  
  The StandDown Texas Project — Authority: 154
  The Palm Beach Post publishes the editorial, "Scott should veto ‘Timely Justice Act’ on the death penalty." Its by Randy Schultz for the Post Editorial Board. In 2006, the American Bar Association showed Florida how to fix the state’s death...
  4 days ago

• Jodi Arias Death Penalty Witness Withdraws After Receiving Death Threats

  
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  Jodi Arias ’ defense attorneys filed another motion for a mistrial after claiming that one of their witnesses made a last minute decision to withdraw because she has been receiving death threats . Facing the death penalty for the “extremely cruel” murder of Travis Alexander , Jodi’s plan was to have her ...
  4 days ago

• When Animals Attack: Man Dragged Off His Scooter Then Kicked And Bitten To Death By Donkeys!!!

  
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  A pair of out of pocket donkeys are getting the death penalty after murking a poor Hungarian man riding his scooter. Via MailOnline reports : A Hungarian pensioner was dragged off his mobility scooter and mauled to death by a pair of killer donkeys. Sandor Horvath, 65, was bitten and trampled on so much that ...
  4 days ago

• In defense of talking points and message discipline

  
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  Alex Pareene at Salon offers a good rant in response to the liberal outfit Message Matters apparently thinking it is doing something helpful by distributing "talking points" to some email list of pundit types it calls "influentials." On the topic in question -- how to defend the Obama Justice Department for ...
  4 days ago

• 2001: An adult actress stoned to death in Evin prison

  
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  (From the May 22, 2001 Eugene Register-Guard , which is also the source of the quoted text below.) Sex workers face a struggle worldwide for labor rights and human rights. At the extreme end of the criminalization spectrum was the fate of the unidentified 35-year-old woman who, according to the Iranian ...
  4 days ago

• Investor Scheme Leads to Death Sentence

  
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  Wenzhou businesswoman Lin Haiyan was sentenced to death last week for illegal fundraising , highlighting China’s use of capital punishment for non-violent crimes. From Dinny McMahon at The Wall Street Journal: According to a statement posted this week on the court website of the city of Wenzhou—known for ...
  4 days ago

• The Death Penalty as Euthanasia

  
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  As I have noted previously, there is the actual teaching of the Church on the death penalty, and then there are two basic ways of trying to distort and ignore it .  Progressives try to say that the DP is just as immoral as abortion.  Meanwhile, reactionaries try lots of different strategies to blow off the ...
  4 days ago

• Arias returns to court for penalty phase of trial

  
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  Jodi Arias returns to court for the continuation of her trial after being convicted of murder in her lovers killing as jurors consider a life sentence or execution. Last week, jurors heard tearful comments from Travis Alexanders brother and sister as they described how his killing has torn their lives ...
  4 days ago

• Legislative and executive officials revving up Floridas machinery of death

  
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  As reported in this lengthy new local article , "Gov. Rick Scott has accelerated the pace of signing death warrants in Florida by lining up three executions over the next few weeks, the most in such a brief period of time in more than two decades."   Here is more about his actions and recent similar activity within ...
  5 days ago

• 399 BCE: Socrates

  
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  It might have been May 19, 399 BCE* — and if not, we’re in the neighborhood — that the original gadfly** philosopher Socrates obeyed a death sentence from his native Athens and quaffed a cup of deadly hemlock . It’s one of the most famous executions in history, and arguably one of the most consequential . ...
  5 days ago

• Ariel Castro and his circuitous path to a death penalty.

  
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  Yeah I suspect that this is not going to be actually hard to do . The murder case prosecutors hope to bring against accused Cleveland abductor Ariel Castro, who police say induced several miscarriages by beating and starving one young woman, will be complicated by a lack of physical evidence and medical records, ...
  1 week ago

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