NCJ Number
182998
Date Published
January 2000
Length
145 pages
Annotation
This is an update of a 1998 American Bar Association (ABA) report that called for a moratorium on the death penalty.
Abstract
The report summarizes legislative, judicial, public policy and other developments that occurred following the ABA’s adoption of its death penalty moratorium resolution in February 1997, updating information through December 1999. Individual chapters discuss Legislative Activity Relating to the Moratorium; Judicial Activity and Developments; Executive Branch Activity; Activity Within the ABA, the Profession, and Public Bodies; and Impacts Beyond the Legal Community. For the first time since the death penalty was restored in 1976, its many proponents are being forced to deal with evidence of its unfair administration in numerous jurisdictions. More leaders are calling for close study of death penalty laws and processes, media coverage and academic scrutiny continue, and science has contributed its part, as DNA has become the latest and best proof of innocence for numerous wrongfully convicted persons on death row. Eliminating unfairness in implementing capital punishment will require much work. That work has taken on a renewed sense of urgency in the face of recent evidence that innocent persons are being condemned to death at alarming rates, as well as evidence of an acceleration in the rate of juvenile executions. Notes, appendixes