Bishop Shelton Fabre of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, chair of the US Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, writes: Two leading Louisiana legislators, one Democrat and one Republican, have sponsored bipartisan legislation to repeal the death penalty in Louisiana. The Legislature should pass this measure, and the governor should sign it. For Catholics and many… Read More Bishop Fabre: Louisiana Should End the Death Penalty
Archbishop Wilton Gregory, Bishop Frank Dewane, and Bishop Shelton Fabre write: There is no toxin more pernicious than hatred based on racial stereotypes. Despite progress in overcoming the sin of racism in recent years, racism still exists in American society—causing pain and hurt, and even leading to death. As a case in point, Keith Tharpe… Read More Three Bishops Speak Out Against Death Sentence in Case with Racist Juror
via Jessica Masulli Reyes, The News Journal: In a landmark decision, the Delaware Supreme Court has ruled that the state’s death penalty statute is unconstitutional. A 148-page opinion released Tuesday afternoon said that the current law is a violation of the Sixth Amendment role of the jury. The decision of whether and how to reinstate the… Read More Delaware’s Death Penalty Declared Unconstitutional by State’s Supreme Court
The population of my hometown in 1801 was 2,000 hardy souls. On September 10th of that year, 10,000 people gathered on the Town Common. What caused the population to swell to five times its usual size? A good old fashioned hanging. Earlier that year, Jason Fairbanks murdered his girlfriend—or failed in his half of a… Read More If We Are Going To Kill Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, We Shouldn’t Sanitize It or Turn Away
Early this month Henry McCollum, North Carolina’s longest serving death row inmate, walked out of prison a free man. He has spent the majority of his life—30 years—behind bars for a crime he did not commit. Thanks to DNA evidence, we now know that the confession extracted by police in the early 1980s was in… Read More Gambling with Innocent Lives: The Death Penalty and a Flawed Criminal Justice System
Check out these recent articles from around the web: Bet on Africa rising by Michael Gerson: “Africa is not a brand. It is an impossibly large and diverse continent, which includes both Ebola hot zones and six of the top 10 fastest growing economies in the world.” Pope Francis and the New Values Debate by… Read More Around the Web
Check out these recent articles from around the web: A Raw Deal: Our Pain, Their Gain by Michael Stafford: “The great task that has been set before us in the coming years is simply this- to break the power of the wealthy and make America’s government one run by and for the people once again.”… Read More Around the Web
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