Death Penalty

Dr. Hugo Bedau, a long-time professor of philosophy at Tufts University, died earlier this week ( New York Times , August 17, 2012, p. B14). He was
born in Portland. Professor Bedau devoted much of his career to the systematic, rigorous and socially conscious study of the death penalty and
made his scholarship relevant for legislators, other policy makers, the courts and the legal profession in general. He wrote, among many other

Death row inmate Gary Haugen won a legal battle Friday against Gov. John Kitzhaber when a judge ruled he could reject the governor's reprieve of his execution and move forward in his efforts to die by lethal injection. The opinion by Senior Judge Timothy P. Alexander is expected to initiate new adversarial proceedings between the prisoner who volunteered to die and the governor who had a change of heart about capital punishment.

June 22, 2012 LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state's execution law Friday, but did not deem lethal injection or the death penalty unconstitutional.

Read More http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/06/22/12357759-arkansas-supreme-cou...

A few years ago, Antonin Scalia, one of the nine justices on the US supreme court, made a bold statement. There has not been, he said, "a single case – not one – in which it is clear that a person was executed for a crime he did not commit. If such an event had occurred … the innocent's name would be shouted from the rooftops."

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

In April, Connecticut became the fifth state in five years to abolish the death penalty. In Oregon this past December, Gov. John Kitzhaber placed a moratorium on all executions, citing his refusal “to be a part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer.”

That public response to Kitzhaber’s action has been relatively mute perhaps indicates that the time has come for Oregon to join Connecticut and 16 other states in abolishing capital punishment.