The number of judges dissenting — often strongly — from death penalty rulings is increasing, according to this Aug. 13, 2009, story in The New York Times.

In 2009, New Mexico joined the list of states no longer using capital punishment. Gov. Bill Richardson signed legislation in March repealing the state’s death penalty and replacing it with a maximum sentence of life without parole. This March 18, 2009, CNN story gives the details.

The case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed by Texas in 2004 for setting a fire that killed his three daughters, was re-examined in light of assertions that Willingham may have been innocent and that evidence was overlooked by the authorities. A 2009 investigation by the Texas Forensic Science Commission found the claims that […]

Gallup publishes an annual survey each October on attitudes toward the death penalty. The January 2013 survey shows the consistency of general support for capital punishment: 63 percent in favor of the death penalty. The poll also shows Republicans and Independents are much more likely to support the death penalty than Democrats. But when given the choice […]

Read a June 15, 2009, Associated Press story (posted by FoxNews.com) about a French trial in which the prosecutor is seeking to have the Church of Scientology banned in that country.

Read a Jan. 19, 2007, Wall Street Journal article (posted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) about a prison program in New Mexico that uses principles espoused by Scientology’s founder.

Read a May 10, 2004, New Yorker article on responsibility at Abu Ghraib.

Read a May 14, 2004, article by Robert Parham in EthicsDaily.com, a publication of the Baptist Center for Ethics. It examines the “bad apples” explanation of the Abu Ghraib abuses in a Christian religious context.

Read the official Defense Department report on the Abu Ghraib abuses, published in August 2004, particularly Appendix G on the social psychology of abusive behavior and the predictability of abuse in the right social circumstance.