U.S. Catholic - In conversation with American Catholics - "Stevens' retirement leaves court without strongest death penalty critic" (Patricia Zapor, Catholic News Service. Tuesday, April 13, 2010).
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- "The retirement this spring of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens leaves the court without its strongest critic of the death penalty...
Stevens' career on the court has included more than 3,500 opinions, including some on which his views have shifted during his 35-year career, notably on capital punishment.
On the death penalty, in 1976, months after he joined the court, Stevens co-wrote the main opinion that allowed the reinstatement of capital punishment. But in 2008 in an opinion that ultimately upheld Kentucky's method of lethal injection, Baze v. Rees, Stevens asked whether the time has come to reconsider "the justification for the death penalty itself."
He also wrote rulings or concurring opinions in cases that found the death penalty unconstitutional for juveniles and for people who are mentally retarded..."
