Justice Talking on the death penalty

The radio program Justice Talking, which is produced by the Annenberg Public Policy Center and distributed nationally by NPR, has this new program on the death penalty.  Here is the overview:

First used in Texas in 1982, lethal injection is the method of execution now authorized in 37 of the 38 states that have the death penalty. But the recent botched execution of Angel Nieves Diaz in Florida raises new questions of whether the method violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.  Join us on this edition of Justice Talking as we take a new look at capital punishment and ask age-old questions about whether the death penalty is appropriate retribution for heinous crimes, whether it deters criminal activity and whether it can be administered in a fair and humane way.