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.
The newly completed execution chamber at Ely State Prison in Ely, Nevada.
Nevada Department of Corrections via AP
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.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy administers the judicial oath to Justice Neil Gorsuch.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
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 in 2010 after returning to Iran from the US.
Vahid Salemi / AP/Press Association Images
Capital punishment is unfairly imposed, innocent people are regularly condemned and it is patently ineffective in deterring crime. So why to states retain the death penalty?
Demonstration against the death penalty in Paris.
World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
More than 150 people have been released from death rows around the US after having their wrongful convictions overturned. Most continue to face social stigma and unemployment.
Former Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi waves at his trial with other Muslim Brotherhood members in Cairo, in May. He was subsequently sentenced to death. Egypt is among a handful of African countries that regularly execute.
Reuters/Mohamed Abd El Ghany
As with most aspects of criminal justice in sub-Saharan Africa, the death penalty as it currently exists in law is a colonial import. Criminal justice before the modern era was a private matter.
Executions are rare in India, but debate over the death penalty is intense.
EPA/Farooq Khan