The Supreme Court denied requests for stays of execution in the cases of Marcus Wellons in Georgia and John Winfield in Missouri. Wellons' execution was first since the botched lethal injection of Clayton Lockett in April and was the first in Georgia to be carried out using a drug not federally approved.

Following last month's botched lethal injection in Oklahoma, a lawmaker in Utah says he wants to bring back death by firing squad — "the most humane way to kill somebody," he believes — as an option for those sentenced to death in his state.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans polled by NBC News said they'd favor a return to death by gas, electric chair, firing squad or hanging if lethal injection was found impractical. What's your preference? Personally, I'd like to have seen polling numbers for garroting and breaking on the wheel.

The Fifth Circuit has just granted a stay of the execution of Robert James Campbell. He had been scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. tonight in Texas. In their opinion, which is unanimous, the Fifth Circuit says it wants to hear Campbell's habeas corpus petition based on his alleged mental disability.

Tonight, the state of Texas is set to conduct the first execution since Oklahoma botched Clayton Lockett's last month. The death of 41-year-old Robert James Campbell, who confessed to and was convicted of the 1991 rape and murder of Alexandra Rendon, is scheduled for 6 p.m. He will die by lethal injection of a single drug, pentobarbitol.

Texas death row inmate Ray Jasper was executed by lethal injection last night. He wrote to us twice as part of our "Letters from Death Row" series. You can read his letters to us here, and a letter from the brother of his victim here. He is the fourth one of our death row correspondents to be executed.

Two weeks ago, Texas death row inmate Ray Jasper wrote us a letter. Tomorrow, barring any last minute miracles, Ray Jasper will die.

Americans need jobs! Are any Americans willing to relocate to strangle criminals until they stop breathing? If so, contact these guys:

Last month (as we did last year), we sent letters to all of the U.S. death row inmates who have execution dates in the upcoming year. Today, we have our first reply: Ray Jasper, who is scheduled to be put to death in Texas in March.

America's embrace of the death penalty makes us a gross anomaly in the developed world. The good news is that we seem to be growing less and less fond of it. The newest numbers are (relatively) encouraging.

Japan executes its death row inmates only hours after the prisoner has been informed that they are about to be hanged, Danielle Wiener-Bronner over at The Atlantic writes.

The Supreme Court is set to review the case of Freddie Lee Hall, a mentally retarded man in Florida who was sentenced to death for participating in a rape, robbery, and two murders. They tackle two main questions: How high an IQ should be necessary for capital punishment? And is IQ measurement even precise enough to be used in cases like this?

In case you needed any further evidence that war, and perhaps particularly the war currently underway in Syria, is a barbaric and soul-sucking swamp of cruelty, the New York Times' C.J. Chivers offers up today a gruesome video of Syrian opposition soldiers executing seven captured members of Assad's forces. The soldiers are on their knees, bent sharply at the waist, shirtless. After a rebel commander known as "the Uncle" recites a religious poem, the men are shot to death by seven gunmen. The Times' video editors mercifully cut to black as the shots were fired.

Texas death row inmate Douglas Feldman was executed by lethal injection last night. Last February, Feldman wrote to us as part of our "Letters from Death Row" series; you can read his letter to us here. He is the second one of our death row correspondents to be executed.

The FBI has been reviewing thousands of criminal convictions in order to determine whether they may have been secured using faulty science. Now, 27 death penalty convictions are reportedly being questioned.

Warren Hill, a mentally retarded death row inmate in Georgia, will be executed on July 15 unless the courts step in to save him again.

Tonight, the state of Texas is scheduled to carry out its 500th execution since the death penalty was legalized there in 1982.

Support for the death penalty among Americans is hovering around a 40-year low. Nevertheless, enthusiastic legislators from Bumfuck all the way to Hickville are taking it upon themselves to help their states execute death row inmates with greater dispatch.

Earlier this year, we published several letters from American death row inmates who were scheduled for execution in 2012. Two of those letters were from Brett Hartmann, Ohio inmate 357-869. Yesterday, he was executed by lethal injection.

The U.S. of A, the greatest country on earth, has legally executed 27 people this year, and more than 1,300 since we resurrected the death penalty back in 1976. Mr. Presidential Candidates, what will YOUR administration do to ensure that the USA is not eclipsed by nations like Iraq and Gambia, who are trying to Even Greater Than Us, in a "killing their own citizens" sense?