ore than 600 people have been electrocuted, poisoned, or otherwise executed by the United States since 1973. In 1998, America earned the dubious honor of executing more people than countries like Iran, Cuba, Rwanda, and even Taliban Afghanistan. In fact, the United States last year ranked third in the world in number of executions--its tally outmatched only by Communist China and the Democratic Republic of Congo (which was in the midst of a civil war).

Writing in 1957, the French author Albert Camus called the death penalty "a revolting butchery, an outrage inflicted on the person and body of man" that further disseminates the very culture of violence it is meant to eradicate. In addition to such well-grounded moral objections, there are some very real practical reasons for objecting to the death penalty. In a 1972 majority opinion, the United States Supreme Court stated that, in most states, the death penalty was applied in such a random and unfair fashion that it risked violating the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment. Such warnings have been borne out. Seventy-six of the more than 6,000 death-row convictions since 1973 have later been reversed; in other words, one out of 80 death row inmates came within a whisker's breath of being wrongly executed by the state.

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I support Slowdown's efforts to stop the death penalty in America. As a leading presidential candidate, you have the power to change the terms of debate on this topic; as a potential president, you will be in a position to effect real change. As an American, I ask you to use your voice and authority to hasten the end of state-sponsored killing.