The Last Meals Project Every prisoner waiting to be executed is granted a last meal. Prisoners waiting to die choose their last meal for different reasons. Here's a list of exonerated death-row prisoners.
posted by modelenoir on Jul 28, 2011 - 45 comments

176 Horn Lane, Acton, London, probably isn't an address you think of when it comes to death sentences in Arizona and California. It is the home of a small driving school. And Dream Pharma, a mom and pop pharmaceutical wholesaler. [more inside]
posted by MuffinMan on Jan 7, 2011 - 13 comments

A new study of death penalty deterrence by researchers from Sam Houston State University and Duke University suggests that there is a decline in murders in the month of or after executions. Meanwhile, Kenneth Mosley became the 448th inmate executed in Texas since 1982 on January 7th, 2010. (Last link: previously, previously and previously)
posted by mrducts on Jan 8, 2010 - 50 comments

In 1947, Thomas Ley, a virulently sectarian, pro-hanging Australian politician, died in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where he had been sent after being sentenced to death for murder. It was probably not his first.
posted by Fiasco da Gama on Jul 15, 2009 - 13 comments

The Supreme Court today issued a one line statement refusing to hear Troy Davis' appeal. Troy Davis was convicted of the 1989 murder of a police officer in Savannah, GA, and sentenced to death solely on eyewitness testimony. No murder weapon or any physical evidence linked him to the crime. Since the conviction, seven of the nine witnesses have recanted or changed their stories, and one of the two who haven't changed their stories is the other suspect in the case. Things were looking good for Davis when the Supreme Court issued a stay two hours before his execution last month. Justice may really be dead in this country.
posted by x_3mta3 on Oct 14, 2008 - 60 comments

"Tim Kaine says Adolf Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty." Or so say Republican campaign ads supporting Jerry Kilgore, Virginia's attorney general, in his bid to become that state's new governor. Tim Kaine, the Democratic lieutenant governor, says his moral objections to capital punishment are rooted in his Roman Catholic faith. "Solidly pro-life" Jim Kilgore, endorsed by the Virginia Society for Human Life and National Right to Life political action committees, accuses Kaine of being an "anti-death penalty activist who cannot be trusted to oversee the death penalty in Virginia." This is important to Virginians. Based on the number of executions carried out under the post Furman laws, Virginians are second only to Texans in their fondness for execution. As attorney general, Kilgore tried to expand the kinds of crimes that would be eligible for the death penalty. Tim Kaine reassured voters, "That's why I personally oppose the death penalty. But I take my oath of office seriously, and I'll enforce the death penalty . . . because it's the law."
posted by three blind mice on Oct 15, 2005 - 42 comments

There are some questions that social scientists should be able to answer. Either executing people cuts the homicide rate or it does not. A fascinating look into statistics and the death penalty.
posted by LimePi on Sep 29, 2004 - 32 comments

Four California activists were arrested Tuesday while protesting the case of Kevin Cooper, set to be executed in less than a week. Gov. Schwarzenegger denied a clemency hearing for Cooper (the first time such a hearing was denied since California re-instituted the death penalty in 1978), despite ample evidence shedding doubt not only on the fairness of Cooper's trial, but also his alleged guilt. Kevin Cooper is asking people to protest for his life.
posted by sudama on Feb 5, 2004 - 71 comments