Three executions are scheduled in America on August 13. The states set to kill men that day are Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Alabama. The terrible crimes the men committed were reprehensible, and this writing is not meant to diminish, minimize, or hide from the ignominy of their offenses. I’m not arguing any of these men should receive anything less than languishing behind bars.

What I’m arguing is the death penalty is a chronic, metastatic disease, sickening our justice system and diminishing America’s standing and perceived moral authority around the world.

Overwhelmingly, civilized countries long ago abolished capital punishment, but the U.S. has stubbornly been a flagrant exception despite a few years in the 1970s when the death penalty was held to be unconstitutional. Some take consolation that the number of new death sentences has been falling considerably over time; among other reasons jurors are less likely to vote to kill defendants these days, they are much more knowledgeable about the classist and racial disparities the death penalty creates as well as the vagaries and impreciseness of forensic “science” evidence (science in........

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