Death Be Not Proud

I belong to a generation of Europeans for whom the United States embodies democracy, progress and liberty. I went there as a student after the war. I have never forgotten the warmth and friendship that the American people showed me. In a word, I belong to that vanishing species: the Americanophile.

That is why I am writing this article. I don't believe that Americans fully understand how their use of the death penalty has profoundly degraded the country's image in the eyes of other democratic nations. Today, all the Western democracies have abolished the death penalty. Almost all...