Here are some stories on the death penalty from the long weekend:

Injection Follies:  Bill Harlan of the Rapid City Journal reports here that other states with statutes similar to South Dakota's have not had to hold up their executions to amend the statute.  He quotes advice from yours truly on not writing detailed protocols into your statutes. Meanwhile, the Tennesseean reports that Daryl Holton, who murdered his own children, has chosen the electric chair for his Sept. 19 execution.  It has not been used in Tennessee since 1960.

Iraq Rape/Murder.  The AP reports that an Army investigating officer has recommended the death penalty for four soldiers who are alleged to have raped a 14-year-old girl and then murdered her and her family.

Rwanda.  From Africa comes this report that Rwanda is poised to abolish the death penalty, not because it wants to but because the Europeans are forcing it to by refusing extradition of alleged perpetrators of genocide.  The people are very much against it, but their opinion doesn't count.  This extorted abolition will, in due course, be held up as another example that the whole world is turning against the death penalty, just as we saw in Eastern Europe

Forum. Tomorrow's death penalty discussion at the Brookings Institution will be covered on CSPAN3, according to the CSPAN Web site.