A Dec. 26, 2007, New York Times story, “At 60% of Total, Texas is Bucking Execution Trend,” shows how the decline in executions in most states has made Texas the modern-day capital of capital punishment. As the story notes, “For the first time in the modern history of the death penalty, more than 60 percent of all American executions […]

Read the June 26, 2008, Washington Post story “High Court Rejects Death For Child Rape.”

See state-by-state reports on statistics and action on death penalty issues from the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has a policy page on death penalty resources.

Read a September 2011 summary by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life about American public opinion on the death penalty during the last 50 years. The analysis shows large differences in opinions, with blacks and Latinos expressing greater opposition than other Americans.

Pollingreport.com posts opinion polls about the death penalty among other topics like crime and violence.

Dina Najman is rosh kehillah, or “head of the community,” at Kehilat Orach Eliezer Orthodox synagogue in Manhattan, N.Y. She was given the position even though she is not an ordained rabbi; Orthodox Judaism does not ordain female rabbis. Read an Aug. 21, 2006, New York Times story about her.

For more detailed information on legal developments in the death penalty in America, see a timeline by the Clark County, Ind., prosecuting attorney’s office.

Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is co-editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary and a professor of Bible at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles.