A move in the wrong direction

Alito was the swing vote, and the Court voted to approve capital punishment in Kansas.

WASHINGTON (AP) - New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito broke a tie Monday to rule that Kansas' death penalty law is constitutional.

By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices said the Kansas Supreme Court incorrectly interpreted the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment to strike down the state's death penalty statute.

As I noted a day or so ago, the vast majority of other countries in the world don't practice capital punishment. We are in league with a few rogue states, notably, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, who together with us accounted for 94% of the executions in 2005.