New Findings Prove Need for Death Penalty Moratorium

The American Bar Association has renewed its call for a moratorium on executions in the United States until states thoroughly review and reform their systems to assure due process and fairness, based on three years analysis of how capital cases are investigated, prosecuted and appealed in eight sample death penalty states. Key findings released Oct. 29 identify problems common among the eight studied states, and suggest they may also exist among the 30 other U.S. death penalty jurisdictions. Problems include major racial disparities, inadequate indigent defense services and irregular clemency review processes that make the death penalty systems operate unfairly. Local legal experts applied 93 protocols, based on ABA policies to assure due process and fairness, as measuring points to the death penalty systems in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, and found serious flaws in each of the states. Five of the local teams urged their own officials to implement a moratorium, though teams in Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania did not. While the ABA takes no position for or against the death penalty itself, since 1997 it has urged a moratorium in each jurisdiction that provides for capital punishment until the state conducts a thorough and exhaustive study to determine whether its system meets legal standards for fairness and due process. The reviews were a first step in each of the eight states, but not a substitute for the thorough analysis supported by the ABA, because the volunteer legal teams could not obtain access to much of the information needed to assess compliance with many of the protocols.