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The past week found executions (and the questions that surround capital punishment) in the news. In Ohio, the execution of Romell Broom was “botched” and eventually called off when technicians were unable to deliver the lethal injection citing his drug use as their reason to not hit a vein after nearly two hours. Initially there was an attempt to set a second execution date — which was temporarily halted as questions of cruel and unusual punishment are considered. During the same week, Stephen Moody was executed in Texas, the John Allen Muhammad the so-called “DC sniper” had his execution date set while others fought to avoid extradition and execution in the US. Here are a few pieces to recap the week alongside a few interesting opinion pieces.
Ohio Plans to Try Again as Execution Goes Wrong
New US Vein Execution Bid Halted
Execution Date Set for “DC Sniper”
Texas: the Kinder, Gentler, Hang ‘Em High State
NY Times Op-Ed – Last Words [Before Execution]
Salon: Opposing the Death Penalty is not about Innocence
Anthropoliteia 
You know, I was wondering: I know Jon Simon over at Governing Through Crime/Prawfsblog has been documenting the absurdity of mass incarceration costs given CA’s “budget crisis,” but I haven’t yet heard the same thing about death penalty cases…
Maybe I’m remembering wrong–and I’m sure someone can correct me if that’s so–but I seem to recall that putting someone to death in the U.S. actually costs more than the (already super-expensive) cost of life imprisonment.
Have people been talking about this in light of the “fiscal crisis”? If so, where? If not, why not? It would seem that one of the many things (moral, biological, social, etc.) prisoners are is a financial object–it would seem curious if this aspect fell away just now…
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