Jan. 7 NYT Editorial

As the Supreme Court prepared to hear arguments in Baze v. Rees, a case out of Kentucky that challenges the constitutionality of lethal injection, the New York Times published an editorial titled "Cruel and Far too Usual Punishment."

The piece focuses on the lethal injection debate, but the paper makes some powerful statements and observations about the death penalty in its entirety:
"We believe that the death penalty, no matter how it is administered, is unconstitutional and wrong."

..."Popular support for capital punishment is, thankfully, declining in this country. The growing number of exonerations of innocent people on death row has shown that the system cannot be trusted to make such an irrevocable decision. There is considerable evidence of racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty. After years of botched electrocutions and other horrors, it is clear that the methods of taking life are barbaric."
..."In 2007, executions in this country dropped to a 13-year low, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. We believe that use of the death penalty will continue to decline, and we hope that it will eventually be banned completely. Until that time, however, the Supreme Court has a duty to ensure that it is not administered in a cruel way. Kentucky’s ill-conceived and haphazard administration of lethal injection does not meet that constitutional requirement."
Read the full editorial here.