Editorials

OUR VIEW: Alabama this year went against the national trend of fewer executions, even though the state's system of capital punishment leaves much to be desired
Published: Tuesday, December 27, 2011, 5:45 AM
 By Birmingham News editorial board The Birmingham News
 

Bucking a national trend rarely lands Alabama's elected officials in trouble with the electorate. In fact, many claim not being like New York, or California, or Texas, or any other state, as a badge of honor.

The state of Alabama has no shortage of reasons to stop putting people to death or at least take a break from executions. Now, it can add a shortage of a key lethal injection drug to the lengthy list.

The sedative sodium thiopental has become scarce because its only U.S. manufacturer stopped making it. States that use the death penalty have been scrambling at home and abroad to score new supplies of the drug, and Alabama got its most recent batch from the state of Tennessee.

Attorneys for an Alabama death row inmate scheduled to be executed in less than four weeks have asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate whether the state illegally obtained its supply of the execution drug sodium thiopental.

Published: Sunday, April 10, 2011, 5:37 AM
By Letters from our readers The Birmingham News

I thought that as a physician, Gov. Robert Bentley would view capital punishment differently than previous governors. Surely, as a physician, he would view the death penalty as an inhumane act, or at least as an uncertain one, I thought.

If someone doesn't intervene, William Glenn Boyd will be executed Thursday for a terrible crime he committed a quarter century ago.

To some, no doubt, putting Boyd to death represents justice and a fitting end to an awful saga. In particular, those who loved Fred and Evelyn Blackmon might welcome Boyd's execution, and we can't blame them for that.

By Birmingham News editorial board

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn: No more death penalty in his state.

It took Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn two months to make a decision, but in the end, he made an appropriate and momentous choice: Last Wednesday, he signed a law abolishing the death penalty in his state.