A controversial Alabama execution taking place on Thursday has reignited scrutiny of the death penalty and highlighted the enduring nature of the practice despite attempts to end it.
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“I think the various practical problems of the death penalty have generated a public opinion movement against it,” says Frank Baumgartner, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who has specialized in the study of capital punishment. “It started with innocence but has spread to botched executions, cost overruns, time delays, [and] lack of deterrence value.”