The promised benefits of lethal injection – a quick, painless death – have never come true. There’s not even agreement about which drugs are best for executions.
Articles on Capital punishment
Displaying 21 - 40 of 60 articles
Should all-white juries be permitted in death penalty cases involving black defendants?
Many recent executions in the US by lethal injections have resulted in prolonged suffering before death. A historian asks: Could the guillotine be a preferable method?
How long does the brain remain conscious after decapitation?
The National Death Penalty Archive collects documents and paraphernalia behind the thousands of executions that have taken place on American soil.
Research shows the deterrent effect of capital punishment is a myth.
Pope Francis has said that death penalty violates the dignity of a person. But, this might just deepen the debate among Christians, who for a long time have been divided over the issue.
The British home secretary has decided not to seek assurances from the US that it wouldn’t use the death penalty for an IS duo arrested in Syria. This must be opposed.
Iwao Hakamada was tried for quadruple murder in 1966, but the evidence that convicted him is regarded with widespread scepticism.
Survey shows Zimbabwean policy makers need not fear a public backlash if they choose to abolition of the death penalty.
Kenya’s death penalty proposal is not the quick fix solution to curb wildlife poaching.
The 1995 Tokyo sarin attack helped make Japanese criminal justice dramatically more punitive.
Singapore claims to have nearly eliminated drug use and crime thanks to capital punishment - but the data tells a very different story.
Teens’ brains develop different skills along a predictable timeline. These milestones should influence the legal age boundaries for voting, buying guns and being put to death.
Nevada plans to use a new drug protocol for executing Scott Dozier, who murdered a 22-year-old. A scholar explains why this is problematic.
In the Western world, the U.S. is one of only one of two countries with capital punishment, and support remains strongest in the ‘Bible Belt’. Here’s a look at the historic arguments within Christian communities over the death penalty.
Trump’s promise to appoint conservatives to the Supreme Court could mean the fate of the death penalty rests in the court of public opinion.
Most people who see Myuran Sukumaran: Another Day in Paradise, opening today as part of the Sydney Festival, will already have a strong opinion on the artist and his death – but a few may have their minds changed.
Shahram Amiri is one of 250 people executed this year despite President Rouhani’s efforts to improve his country’s human right’s record.
Advocacy efforts are easier to dismiss when they are seen to reflect vested interests more than principled foundations.
Top contributors
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William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College
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Director of the University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit, Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford
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Professor in Human Rights and International Law, University of Newcastle
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Professor, Director of the Institute for Crime and Justice Policy Research, Birkbeck, University of London, Birkbeck, University of London
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Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, Death Penalty Project and Visiting Professor of Practice, University of Oxford
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Senior Lecturer, School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University
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Term Assistant Professor, Department of Criminology Law and Society, George Mason University
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Associate Professor of History, Emory University
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Professor of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross
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Associate Professor in Political Science and International Relations, The University of Western Australia
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Professor of Law, University of Florida
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Lecturer in Human Rights, University of Essex
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Visiting Professor, War and Security Studies/International Genetics, King's College London
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Associate Professor of Criminology and Human Rights, Swansea University
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Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Laboratory for Innovation in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (iGLAM), UNSW