What It Means if the Death Penalty Is Dying

That's the title of a new New York Times feature, Room for Debate.

Last week, lawmakers in New Hampshire heard testimony on a bill outlawing the death penalty. If passed, the law would make New Hampshire the 19th state to abolish capital punishment. The United States, the only country in the Americas to practice the death penalty last year, executed 39 people, four fewer than the year before, and Texas accounted for 41 percent of them, according to Amnesty International.

As executions become concentrated in fewer and fewer states and racial disparities continue, does the application of capital punishment make it unconstitutionally cruel and unusual?

It features short essays from six individuals.

• "Rare and Decreasing," by Richard C. Dieter, Death Penalty Information Center
• "Punishment Needs to Be Punishment," by Robert Blecker, author of The Death of Punishment
• "No Justice for Victims of Color," by Khalilah L. Brown-Dean, a political scientist
• "Of Course, It’s Cruel and Unusual," by Kirk Noble Bloodsworth of Witness to Innocence
• "Claims of Racial Disparity Are Misleading," by John McAdams, a political scientist
• "The Most ‘Unusual’ It’s Ever Been," by Paul Butler, Law professor and former prosecutor

More on the New Hampshire repeal legislation and the Amnesty International report at the links.