And Now the News with Kandy Korrespondent

On Wednesday, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of ending the death penalty for the crime of child rape. This is the second such ruling this year. Last September an unofficial national moratorium on the death penalty went into effect when the court agreed to hear two appeals to lethal injection arguing that the practice causes extreme pain constituting cruel and unusual punishment. The moratorium was ended when the court finally ruled on April 16th that Kentucky’s, the state in question, guidelines for lethal injection did not in fact constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

The death penalty tends to be considered a “third-rail” issue along the lines of abortion. The sudden willingness of the highest court to rule on such cases seems to mark a shift in this regard. Anti-death penalty activists are hopeful that this current trend will end in an eventual ban on its usage. The United States is one of the few “western” countries to still use the death penalty.

In Other News:
Also on Wednesday, during a phone-in town hall meeting Presidential hopeful John McCain told a Floridian voter that only World War III would justify reinstituting a national draft. While this calms some fears, the fact that he failed to define World War III of course still leaves the issue a bit open to interpretation. Given the current ambiguous nature of the so-called “War on Terror”, it is unclear at what point a conflict would in fact obtain such a label. Read More »