A journalist who has written extensively on the biblical and spiritual preoccupations of directors Joel and Ethan Coen says in "True Grit" they treat the Presbyterian moral code of fourteen-year-old narrator-heroine Mattie Ross with tenderness and empathy.

The US is the only Western democracy that still sentences youthful offenders to life in prison without parole for serious crimes. But there is growing resistance to that.

Right now, 36 states permit capital punishment for murder. Should that penalty be extended to those who rape children?