While you were re-electing a president:
Senator-elect Jim DeMint: Thinks that unwed pregnant women and gays are unfit to be schoolteachers.
Senator-elect Tom Coburn: Wants the death penalty for abortion doctors.
Senator-elect John Thune: Mr. School Prayer Amendment.
Voters in 11 states voted to ban same-sex marriage. The lowest margin was 57%-43%. The highest (Mississippi) was 86%-14%. Kentucky's also bans civil unions. That one was 75%-25%.
The Senate will likely be split 55-45 in favor of Republicans, creeping closer to a filibuster-proof supermajority. Meanwhile, 89% of these guys are older than 65.
Enjoy your tax cut, America. You're going to need it.
posted by PrinceValium on Nov 3, 2004 - 73 comments

(NYT) The death row trifecta: juvenile, retarded and ... proved innocent by DNA testing
But unlike other trifectas, this one will not necessarily get you off the hook. Never mind that the real perpetrator has been identified (due to his prison yard bragging initially and through a DNA perfect match later). One of the great problems of the American criminal justice system is that once an innocent person is trapped in the system, it's extremely difficult to get him — or her — extricated.
posted by magullo on Jul 14, 2003 - 29 comments

The Exonerated
Want to see some great theater and learn a bit about our great system of justice and capital punishment? Then The Exonerated may be the show for you.

The other night I went to see The Exonerated, which has been playing Off Broadway since last fall and is also appearing in theaters around the country this year. Composed wholly from court records and interviews by playwrights Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, this documentary drama recounts true tales of horror from the American criminal-justice system. The actors sit downstage and read their parts as the stories of six innocent citizens condemned to death row unfold. If this sounds like a worthy endeavor, it is; if it sounds dull or didactic, it isn’t.
posted by nofundy on Jul 3, 2003 - 2 comments

England vs. USA Over the death penalty. Initially I felt like saying "butt out" but America tends to get involved in other countries when our citizens are in trouble (like that kid in Singapore way back).
posted by owillis on Sep 10, 2001 - 7 comments

U.S. Supreme Court to review death penalty for retarded. Regardless of what you think of the death penalty for people of normal(?) mental capacity, can you believe that they are just starting to reconsider this now?
posted by jasonshellen on Mar 26, 2001 - 1 comment