UPDATED: The High Court ruled the U.S. must assure free speech and no death penalty for Julian Assange or the court might have to free the publisher who marked five years in prison today, reports Joe Lauria.
Another federal execution was just carried out early Wednesday. Two more are scheduled for this week after both stays were lifted. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg reports on these last three cases and declining U.S. support for the death penalty.
Here’s a hint you might be on the wrong side of history — when your government officials have to pretend to be someone else when contracting with chemical companies that make killer cocktails.
Elected officials are not having a collective epiphany about capital punishment, writes John Kiriakou. But for other reasons executions are still going down.
California voters will get a chance to abolish the state’s expensive and flawed death-penalty system, a step that could reduce America’s death-row population by almost a quarter, writes Marjorie Cohn.
Oklahoma’s ghoulish killing of convicted murderer Clayton Lockett on April 29 has brought new attention to America’s continued use of the death penalty, a politically popular issue in some states but a practice that has many reasons justifying its abolition, writes…
On April 29, Oklahoma authorities strapped convicted murderer Clayton Lockett to a gurney and began pumping in drugs to kill him. But the process went awry as Lockett writhed in pain for 43 minutes, raising moral questions discussed by Dennis J Bernstein with death-penalty opponent…
Oklahoma’s Gov. Fallin, who pushed for Tuesday’s execution of Clayton Lockett, is promising an “independent” review of the ghoulish process that left him writhing in pain as panicked officials pulled the shades on witnesses and later said he died of a heart…