My teen and I have been taking classes about the death penalty and learning about how ineffective it is, how unjust it is and how most people who get it are poor, have mental illness and/or had such terrible representation in court that it's no wonder they were convicted.
So many people have been exonerated after being killed by the state that I can't believe so many people still support this form of punishment. It's also against the law, given that there's no such thing as an execution that's not cruel and unusual. In fact, it's extremely unusual, as most countries have outlawed the archaic practice.
Today we learned that the United States is in the top 10 countries that execute people, and that the rest of the countries listed are well known for their human rights violations. The good news is that the first Southern state to outlaw the practice, Virginia, just did so, which means there's hope for the rest of the nation.
What other weird or freaky things have you read about this week? Share them in the chat.