Charles Lane

Journalist, The Washington Post

Bosch Fellow in Public Policy - Class of Spring 2009

Charles Lane is a longtime writer for the Washington Post and a well-known commentator on the Washington political scene, with particular focus on the Supreme Court. After serving as a foreign correspondent and Berlin bureau chief for Newsweek and as an editor at the New Republic, he is now on the Post’s editorial board. Lane is the author of The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre, The Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction (Henry Holt, 2008), and has written articles for such publications as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, New York Review of Books, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, and many others. He has been a guest professor in journalism and English at Princeton and Georgetown universities.

Project Description

America's Disappearing Death Penalty: A Victory for Europe?

While at the Academy, Lane worked on a book project called “America’s Disappearing Death Penalty: A Victory for Europe?” Lane argued that the death penalty is carried out less frequently today in the US than at any other time since the Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976, and his project will look at international opposition to the death penalty and the impact it has made on the frequency of American executions.

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