Federal Government to Resume Capital Punishment

The Justice Department on Thursday said it would go back to executing federal death-row inmates for the first time in nearly two decades—a move capital punishment opponents quickly denounced as a step backward for criminal justice reform in the country.

“It’s distressing,” said Madeline Cohen, a capital defense attorney who represents three inmates on federal death row. “This administration has a history of taking rash actions, and this one is no exception.”

The federal government set execution dates as early as December for five convicted child murderers, including a man...

The question to Michael Dukakis, the Democratic presidential candidate in 1988, was brutally personal.

“If Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?” Bernard Shaw, a CNN anchor, asked, referring to the Massachusetts governor’s wife. Dukakis said he wouldn’t favor it because “I don’t see any evidence that it is a deterrent.”

The technocratic, largely emotionless response in a debate mere weeks before the election marked the nadir of Democrats’ politically agonized relationship to the death penalty — reinforcing in some voters’...