The dramatic uptick of capital punishment in recent years, and the brutality of methods still used around the world, has thrust state-sanctioned executions back into the spotlight.

Catholic opposition to the death penalty is relatively new in the church’s history, but has helped shape public debate.

Capital punishment is legal in 32 states, but only seven states put prisoners to death in 2014, with most executions conducted in the southern states including Texas, Florida and Oklahoma.

Amnesty International released their 2012 annual report on capital punishment this week, highlighting information on the differing ways countries handle execution around the world. Here are five ...

The good news: Zimbabwe has just banned the death penalty. While it should remove an exemption clause, which might allow for capital punishment’s return were a state of emergency to be declared ...

Seven of those states abolished capital punishment — by ballot initiative, legislation or court order — in the past decade. Four other states have placed a moratorium on the death penalty.

Since then, Biden's Justice Department has argued to reinstate the death sentence for 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who represents the paradigmatic case for capital punishment.

The executions of 24 people last year illustrated the full range of systemic flaws in our system of capital punishment. Skip ... These executions stood against the backdrop of the ACLU’s work around ...

In April 1948, the House of Commons voted to suspend capital punishment for five years, but this decision was overturned by the House of Lords. In 1965, the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act ...