Piers Morgan admitted that it was an “impossibly hypothetical” question, but trudged on anyway, and asked Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum as personal a question on the matter of abortion he could: if his daughter were raped, and “begged to have an abortion,” would his political principles win out? This was the most dramatic part of Morgan’s interview with Santorum last night, where he also challenged the candidate’s credentials on life by making him justify capital punishment.

Appearing on RT, Roseanne Barr argued in favor of beheading any wealthy American making over 100 million dollars, and made a case for bringing back the guillotine in American society as a form of justice for big banks and Wall Street. Previously, while she was participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests, she said that if corporations were people (as decided by the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling), then Goldman Sachs should be executed for financial crimes against the American people.

The past few weeks, the debate over the death penalty has rocketed back into the forefront of the public consciousness starting with the cheering at a GOP debate and culminating with the outcry over the execution of Troy Davis. Today, Touré focused his segment on The Dylan Ratigan Show and came out clearly against capital punishment. He began by saying that, while he was almost always proud of his country, this past week was not one of those times.

Troy Davis was executed today by the state of Georgia despite the mounting controversy surrounding his case. Davis’ attorneys had filed an appeal challenging evidence and witness testimony that had linked Davis to a 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer in Savannah, Georgia. Indeed, seven of the nine individuals who had testified against Davis have since recanted their stories.

The White House has refused to comment on Davis’ case, saying that “it is not appropriate for the President of the United States to weigh in on specific cases.” Meanwhile, Edward Dubose, head of the NAACP’s Georgia branch, has called Davis’ death a “murder” rather than an execution, and hordes of supporters have gathered at the prison where Davis was held to protest the state’s decision to move forward with the decision to execute Davis by lethal injection.

Convicted murderer Troy Davis is expected to be executed today by lethal injection. However, his death sentence is drawing widespread controversy all across the world. London’s The Independent questioned if the execution was one of “America’s worst miscarriages of justice”

How certain of someone’s guilt do we need to be before we put them to death?

In eight days, the state of Georgia is slated to execute Troy Davis, convicted of killing Mark Allen MacPhail, a Savannah police officer. It’s the fourth time Davis has been slated to die. Each of the prior three times, legal issues have resulted in stays or delays. The Supreme Court has repeatedly heard – and declined to hear – arguments on the case. In the fall of 2008, Davis came within two hours of being put to death.

Judging by the reaction on Twitter last night, one of the more interesting moments of last night’s GOP debate came when moderator Brian Williams asked Governor Rick Perry about the death penalty in his state of Texas. Williams note Perry that his state “has executed 234 death row inmates, more than any other governor in modern times,” which drew sudden applause from the audience attending the GOP debate held at the Reagan library last night.

Following today’s verdict that found Casey Anthony not guilty of first degree murder, child abuse or manslaughter, Anthony’s Defense Attorney Jose Baez spoke to the press outside of the Florida courthouse. He thanked his legal team, praised his “adversaries” in the Prosecution, and decried a media he felt convicted his client before her day in court. He also, however, used the moment to speak out against the death penalty, asking why the country still sees fit to “kill its own citizens.”

A little over a month ago, The New Yorker ran a little investigative story by David Grann about the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, who had been accused of setting fire to his house and killing his three daughters inside in 1991. Now The New York Times has taken up a Texas death sentence beat, and we have little doubt that Grann’s piece has something to do with it.