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Justice Stevens and the Death Penalty

By Steve Hall

That's the title of a New York Times editorial.  It appeared in the Sunday edition. In the current "New York Review of Books," the retired Justice John Paul Stevens makes a compelling argument for abolishing the death penalty. He explains how it fails to meet the Supreme Court?s own standards for execution and persists only because of misguided political and cultural reasons. When the court reinstated the death penalty in 1976, it said an execution could avoid being a ?gratuitous infliction of suffering? if it served the purpose of incapacitation, deterrence or retribution. Justice Stevens argues first that it is now unnecessary for incapacitation because ?the remedy of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole? has, over the last three decades, been enacted in 48 of 50 states...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on December 13, 2010 (boomark / email).