Sandy Dwayne Martin is a religion professor at the University of Georgia in Athens. He has written about women’s roles in African-American denominations.

Teresa Fry Brown is an associate professor at Emory University in Atlanta. She is author of Weary Throats and New Songs: Black Women Proclaiming God’s Word and God Don’t Like Ugly: African American Women Handing on Spiritual Values.

Maureen Trudelle Schwarz is associate professor of anthropology at Syracuse University in New York and author of Blood and Voice: Navajo Women Ceremonial Practitioners.

The Sept. 21, 2011, execution of Troy Davis drew international condemnation because of questions about the case, and it sparked a national debate. Read a Sept. 11, 2001, article published on ABCNews.com about the execution.

Cynthia Lynn Lyerly is associate professor of history at Boston College in Massachusetts. She has written about women in Southern churches.

In September 2011, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told an audience at Duquesne University Law School, “If I thought that Catholic doctrine held the death penalty to be immoral, I would resign.” That statement prompted criticism that Scalia, one of six Catholics on the high court, was misinterpreting Catholic teaching against capital punishment. Read this Sept. 25, […]

Sister Mary Ann Hinsdale is associate professor of theology at Boston College in Massachusetts. She is author of Women Shaping Theology.

A Sept. 22, 2011, blog post at Christianity Today examines attitudes toward the death penalty broken down by religion.

Read a Nov. 22, 2011, New York Times story about Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s decision to suspend executions and seek reforms to the state’s death penalty laws.