That's the title of an article in today's Financial Times. LINK
America's attachment to the death penalty is well-rooted but there are significant signs that US courts, politicians and public opinion may be turning against capital punishment.
On Friday, the US Supreme Court agreed to set a new standard for when a death row prisoner is too mentally ill to be executed without violating the constitution. Tomorrow, the justices will consider whether to force attorneys representing death row prisoners to take extraordinary measures to persuade juries to spare their lives. And next week the court will hear three cases that could have a significant impact on the imposition of the death penalty in Texas - the heartland of capital punishment - where nearly half of last year's executions took place.
The Supreme Court's scrutiny of the practice comes against a background of growing public unease about the way prisoners are executed in many states, and the possibility that some might be innocent. A nationwide Gallup poll last year showed a big drop in public support for the death penalty. It showed Americans divided over the best punishment for murder - death or a life sentence without parole - after many years in which capital punishment was strongly preferred.
And:
Tomorrow the court will consider the duty of defence attorneys to find mitigating evidence that could persuade a jury to spare a capital defendant's life.
The case before them involves a death row prisoner who refused to let his lawyer present testimony from his mother and ex-wife to mitigate his sentence. Now he is claiming that his lawyer did not do his job because he did not advise him of other ways that he could improve his case - without the testimony of his relatives. The justices must decide how much to require of defence attorneys in such circumstances: must they ferret out mitigating evidence, even when the defendant appears not to want them to do so?
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