Death Penalty and Human Rights Standards

The Amnesty International gives a timeline about the UN and the death penalty. One important year was in 2007, when the UN General Assembly apporved Resolution 62/149 which called for all states that still maintain the death penalty to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/death-penalty/international-death-penalty/death-penalty-and-human-rights-standards

O'Connor worries about fairness of executions

In The Seattle Times, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has said that there are "serious questions" about whether capital punishment is being fairly administered in the United States. "If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed," O'Connor said in a speech to the Minnesota Women Lawyers group.
http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20010702&slug=ndig02

Restoring Fairness to the Death Penalty

On the St. Petersburg Times website, the author Daniel Ruth tells about the fairness to the death penalty in Florida. He talks about what has happened since capital punishment was restored in 1976, and retired Justice John Paul Stevens once supported the death penalty, but has sicne then reversed himself.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/restoring-fairness-to-the-death-penalty/1137062

Top 10 Arguments for the Death Penalty

This link gives the top ten arguments for the death penalty. One example of an argument for capital punishment is: life imprisonment changes. With that argument, the authors gives events on when the sentence of life imprisonment changes (with pardons and reductions of the sentence). I agree with this because most of the violent felons in our country are repeat offenders.
http://akorra.com/2010/03/04/top-10-arguments-for-the-death-penalty/

Former "Lifer" Prisoners Discuss Life Inside, Prison Reform

Three former prison inmates who served life terms gave a peek into California's prisons in a discussion at Oakes College in UC Santa Cruz. Over 100 students attended the event, which was organized by Barridos Unidos. It touched on the challenges that prisoners face during incarceration and some potential reforms inside the prison system. The former inmates describe the prison life in prisons such as San Quentin State Prison and Tracy California State Prison. 
http://prisonmovement.wordpress.com/2011/05/21/former-lifer-prisoners-discuss-life-inside-prison-reform/

Death Row Inmates Prefer Death to Life

The ABC News article focuses on death row inmates preferring life over death. There are reasons on why this is the case. One is that prison conditions have not given death row inmates much reason to live longer on death row. Many inmates are allowed out of their cells for only an hour a day, they spend twenty-three hours isolated in a cell. Some experts have argue that as human conditions on death row have decreased, so have the prisoners' sense of humanity and willing to live.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=90935&page=1

Death Penalty: Cruel, inhuman and degrading with lethal consequences

This article describes how inhuman the death penalty can be, as Tanzania recognizes October 10 as Anti-Death Penalty Day. The author, Rose Mwalongo, also says why the death penalty is inhumane in Tanzania and there are several people on death row who are innocent and living a psychological torture.
http://www.ippmedia.com/frontend/index.php?l=34248

Denial of Life-Support Treatments for Death Row Inmates

In this article, the author talks about that at least one state is considering legislation which would deny life-supporting medical treatments for the convicted people who have been sentenced to die. The question the author is asking is: Is it ethical and just to deny a convict, sentenced to die, life sustaining treatment before formal execution?
http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~mbernste/ethics.deathrow.html

Death Penalty Fact Sheet

This is a fact sheet about the death penalty. It gives how many states have the death penalty, and how many states do not have the severe form of punishment. According to the fact sheet, the number of executions total as of 2011 is 1,273 in the states that have capital punishment and there are a total of 3,251 inmates on death row awaiting execution. The state with the most amount of death row inmates is California with 721 inmates and the states with the least amount of death row inmates are Wyoming and New Hampshire, each with 1 inmate.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/FactSheet.pdf

Executions by State: 1977-2009

This is a chart in the executions by the 35 states who have the death penalty from 1977 to 2009. According to the chart, Texas has the leading amount of executions with Colorado have only one execution. Texas has executed four times as many prisoners since 1977 as the next highest state.

Source:
http://dailychart.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/texas-leads-the-nation-in-executions-by-far/

How the Death Penalty and Life in Prison Match Up

On Buzzle.com; the author, Gauri Huddar, tells how two major punishments for a serious crime (capital punishment and life imprisonment without parole) match up. He gives the pros and the cons of each punishment, and argument for and against the two. Huddar comments on how the world is favoring for life in prison.
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/death-penalty-vs-life-in-prison.html

The Truth About Life without Parole

This article explains of how and why the author believes life imprisonment without parole is a severe punishment. According to the article, there are facts to prove on why this is the case, and the author compares life without parole "death in prison".
http://www.aclunc.org/issues/criminal_justice/death_penalty/the_truth_about_life_without_parole_condemned_to_die_in_prison.shtml

Statistics

These are the statistics from the Bureau of Justice and the official United States statistics as collected by the government. They are as of January 2011, with the Bureau's latest numbers which are collected from data from 2009. Some of them are from 2010 and come from other sources. According to the statistics, there are 35 states with the death penalty and 15 states without the death penalty. Michigan was the first state to stop the death penalty in 1846.
http://www.antideathpenalty.org/statistics.html

The High Cost of Death Penalty

This article tells on why the death penalty is expensive. They give an example on capital punishment in California, where over 3,500 people have been sentenced to death by the state and not one of them have been released, except those very few people who proved their innocence. The author of the article believes that the death penalty should be replaced with life in prison without parole.
http://www.deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=42

What Costs More? The Death Penalty or Life in Prison?

This link tells about a death penalty vs. life in prison issue in Yakima, Washington. The issue is: does the death penalty or life imprisonment cost more? In a death penalty case; if you add up the prosecution costs and the defense costs, the cost is $1,028,700 more than non-death penalty cases.
http://www.kndo.com/story/15519792/what-costs-more-the-death-penalty-or-life-in-prison

Is life without a parole a better option than the death penalty?

This link gives different viewpoints on whether life in prison without parole is better than the death penalty. Various sources give their opinion to this question, some agree that life without parole is better than capital punishment and some disagree on that opinion. Once they have agreed or disagreed, they give evidence as to why they think so. For example, The American Civil Liberties Union thinks that life in prison is better than the death penalty. Their reason why is: "The death penalty costs more, delivers less, and puts innocent lives at risk. Life without parole provides swift, severe, and certain punishment. It provides justice to survivors of murder victims and allows more resources to be invested into solving other murders and preventing violence. Sentencing people to die in prison is the sensible alternative for public safety and murder victims’ families."
http://deathpenalty.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=001017