Capital offense: The death-penalty system
George Ryan, until last month the Republican governor of Illinois, has revolutionized the debate over capital punishment. His genius, such as it is, has been to ignore the great moral and philosophic questions that surround the topic and focus on the pragmatic ones. Ryan’s brand of argument has turned the anti–death penalty movement into a nonpartisan cause because, as pundit Glen Reynolds puts it, capital punishment is a government program that doesn’t work.