How Does the Death Penalty Differ From Drone Strikes?
Jul 20 2012, 4:00 PM ET
As a lawsuit over the targeted killings of American citizens makes its way through the court system, three experts offer three different opinions.
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Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is the defendant in the pending case. (Reuters)
The most important lawsuit filed so far this year — the most important lawsuit filed in the war on terror since President Barack Obama took office — was unveiled in Washington on Wednesday, just in time for one of the hottest days of the year. In Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta, civil libertarians and two grieving families seek an accounting, literally and figuratively, for the sudden death that came late last September to two overseas terror suspects, both U.S. citizens, who were blown to bits by a missile strike in a remote region of Yemen. Here is the link to the complaint.
Ohio death penalty committee looks at racial bias
ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS, AP Legal Affairs Writer
Updated 02:31 p.m., Thursday, July 19, 2012
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio Supreme Court committee studying the state’s capital punishment law on Thursday rejected a recommendation to collect past data to detect racial bias in death penalty cases.
The committee also postponed votes on a recommendation to collect information in the future on all homicides that might be eligible for capital punishment as another way of detecting racial bias. The committee considered but tabled a proposal to analyze existing death penalty data collected by the state public defender’s office.
Those two proposals are likely to pass in the future when the committee gets more details about the recommendations, said James Brogan, a former state appeals court judge who is chairman of the committee.
Brogan said everyone agrees race shouldn’t play a role in the death penalty, but a number of studies nationally have already shown that is the case.
A Day in the Life of the Death Penalty: July 18, 2012
Next Wednesday, July 18, reckons to be another banner day in the history of capital punishment in America. Sometime between 6 p.m. and midnight, the state of Texas is scheduled to execute a convicted murderer named Yokamon Hearn, a man who has, since early childhood, shown clear and consistent evidence of brain damage. And at 7 p.m., the state of Georgia plans to execute a convicted murderer named Warren Hill, who years ago was deemed by a veteran state judge to be mentally retarded.