As more counties around the world limit or abolish the death penalty, the U.S. is heading in the opposite direction. More than 100 individuals will be executed by the end of 1999, well above last year's U.S. record of 74. As a powerful new study shows, this will include the killing of foreign nationals, mentally retarded and mentally incompetent defendants, and those who were teenagers at the time of their crime -- a practice which is making the U.S. an international human rights pariah.
