Legal analyst Andrew Cohen writes, "The Looming Death of the Death Penalty," at the Atlantic.
The year-end report by the folks at the Death Penalty Information Center tell more and more Americans what they already know in their hearts to be true: The death penalty experiment is failing yet again. Undermined by overzealous prosecutors, a hobby-horse for incurious politicians, too often taken unseriously by jurors and witnesses, capital punishment in America has devolved since 1976 into a costly, inaccurate, racially biased, and unseemly proposition.
We clearly can't do it right, and more people are wondering whether we should continue doing it at all. The facts and figures of 2011 soberly reflect the nation's evolving perceptions of the problems inherent in the justice system's ultimate punishment. For decades, "death is different" has been the courtroom mantra of capital cases. But now, and with increasing clarity, "death is different" is becoming a discernible trend all across the country.
And:
The "evolving standard" of decency, the core element of the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, clearly "evolved" in 2011 against the nation's existing capital punishment protocols. Perhaps not enough to generate any sort of swift movement from the justices in Washington. But more than enough for men and women of good will to take notice. Although I can't be certain, I suspect that the Supreme Court is only two votes short of having a majority that would dramatically alter existing death penalty rules in favor of capital defendants -- or perhaps do away with capital punishment all together. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Andrew Cohen has written a number of excellent essays this year on the death penalty. You can find them through StandDown's Google Search box in the right column.
The DPIC report, "The Death Penalty in 2011: Year End Report," is available in Adobe .pdf format. News coverage of the report is in the preceding post.
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