US in Company of Thugs on Capital Punishment

A new Gallup poll about the death penalty may not change anyone's views on the matter, but one aspect of it should at least "give us all pause for thought," writes Steven L. Taylor at Outside the Beltway. It's not the big takeaway stat—that support for capital punishment remains steady at 64% among Americans. It's the factoid that most executions now take place in China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia—and the United States.

"When dealing with issues of justice and human rights, that isn’t exactly the company I would think that the US would aspire to keep," writes Taylor, who says he has been having second thoughts about his own support of the death penalty in recent years given advances in DNA evidence, among other things. "Noting that the other states that are active users of the policy are authoritarian/involved in a war further brings into question the process." (More death penalty stories.)