Is Texas Changing Its Mind About the Death Penalty?

Ten men and one woman were sentenced to death in Texas in 2008, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. It was the lowest annual figure since the 1976 reinstatement of the death penalty.

"The need for revenge, for vengeance is being curbed, the appetite is no longer there," contends Robert Hirschorn

We're finally growing up it seems.

Finally, beginning to realize what works and what doesn't.

The inquisition should have taught us that fear of punishment no matter how unimaginably brutal, is not a deterrent to the committed, because no one ever plans to be caught, and worse yet, some simply do not care.

History is full of people, for example, who burned themselves alive to prove a point. You simply cannot attack devotion like that with force or fear. More sophistication is needed. And even we young Americans, not even 300 years old, are beginning to realize that fact.

And I for one am deeply proud, considering how long it took other countries to pick up on it.

In time we will stop killing individually and socially, and then when we wake up from this nightmare, let us hope that our capacity for forgiveness is sufficient to allow us to forgive ourselves.