Death sentence: Choosing between cruelties

IT is a core belief of modern, vaguely liberal democracies that it is wrong to execute a person because of a crime they have committed, or at least one they been convicted of.

Indeed, the rules of the European Union insist any country allowing capital punishment may not become a member.

That belief was celebrated in recent days when Nebraska became the first conservative US state in more than 40 years to abolish the death penalty. Nebraska joins 18 other states and Washington DC in outlawing the death penalty.