'Although America goes on claiming to be the greatest democracy in the world, it is sheer bullshit. If killing somebody is a crime, then how can you remove crime from society by committing the same crime again? If murder is wrong, then whether it is committed by the man or by the society and its court, makes no difference. The death penalty is a crime committed by the society against a single individual, who is helpless.' - Bhagwan Rajineesh

A Tool of White Supremacy System of Unequal Power. "In 82% of the studies [reviewed], race of the victim was found to influence the likelihood of being charged with capital murder or receiving the death penalty, i.e., those who murdered whites were found more likely to be sentenced to death than those who murdered blacks." [MORE] and [MORE]

From [HERE] The Arkansas Supreme Court upheld [opinion, PDF] a state law Thursday that allows for the type, manufacturers and sellers of drugs used for lethal injections to be kept confidential. This ruling would allow the execution of eight death row inmates if the stays on their execution dates can be lifted before one of the drugs in the three-drug protocol expires on June 30. A group of the death row inmates had argued that the drug secrecy laws had the potential to lead to cruel and unusual punishment and that the state had failed to keep their pledge to share that information.last 

Capital punishment remains a controversial issue in the US and worldwide. Last month the US Supreme Court upheld a stay of execution for Alabama inmate Vernon Madison. A few days before that a Miami judge ruled that Florida's revamped death penalty law is unconstitutional because it does not require a unanimous agreement among jurors to approve executions. In April Virginia's General Assembly voted to keep secret the identities of suppliers of lethal injection drugs. In February the Eleventh Circuit rejected  a Georgia death row inmate's legal challenge to the death penalty. In January Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood stated that he plans to ask lawmakers to approve the firing squad, electrocution or nitrogen gas as alternate methods of execution if lethal injection drugs become unavailable.