In the hotly contested race for governor, one issue that clearly defines the candidates—and often divides the electorate—is the death penalty.

Injecting the Mattapan killings into the state attorney general's race, Republican candidate James McKenna said yesterday that in light of the gruesome deaths it was time to revisit the death penalty in Massachusetts.

Californians tend to think that capital punishment in the South—especially in Texas, where the overwhelming majority of executions take place—is driven by politics.

 San Quentin Prison's warden walked to the death row cell of Albert Greenwood Brown on Aug. 31 and read a warrant informing him of his scheduled execution this week.

'Momentum is building to repeal the death penalty in Illinois." So declared a press release that landed in my inbox Tuesday from the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, which is kicking off a campaign to hold a repeal vote in the Illinois Legislature this fall.

The "cold-blooded" murder of a Hyde Park deliveryman for his pocket cash and a pepperoni pizza has reignited the push to reinstate the death penalty - in the middle of a hotly contested gubernatorial campaign just as the race kicks into high gear.