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Michael Traynor, President Emeritus of the prestigious American Law Institute (ALI), called the ALI’s recent withdrawal of its model death penalty law “a striking repudiation from the very organization that provided the blueprint for death penalty laws in this country.” He noted that the ALI had carefully reviewed the death penalty process, and that "Now, after searching analysis by our country's top legal minds, the institute has concluded that the system it created does not work and cannot be fixed."  The ALI, with membership of more than 4,000 lawyers, judges and law professors, is the leading independent organization in the United States producing scholarly work to clarify and improve the law. Its model penal code became the prototype for death penalty laws across the United States after the old state laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in 1972. Last fall, Traynor noted, the ALI withdrew its support for the model death penalty law, effectively concluding that “we cannot devise a death penalty system that will ensure fairness in process or outcome, or even that innocent people will not be executed.”

Traynor singled out California’s death penalty law, portions of which were copied from the model statute, as an example of the rampant problems in the system: “The system now is on the verge of collapse. There are about 700 people on death row in California, and it can take 25 years for mandatory appeals to be completed. Since 1978, California has executed 13 prisoners, while 72 have died of old age or other causes.” In California, taxpayers are paying $90,000 more per year to house each death row prisoner, compared to the costs of keeping a prisoner in another high-security prison.  That amounts to a cost of $60 million per year for all of the state’s death row inmates. Read full text below.

The Medical Society of New Jersey recently approved a resolution calling upon the American Medical Association (AMA) to advocate for the "abolition of capital punishment by each jurisdiction in the United States of America ... and replace it with life in prison without the possibility of parole." Among the stated rationales for the resolution, the society noted that "Numerous reports document pernicious and recurring errors and other fallibilities associated with the judicial process of capital punishment as currently imposed that include flawed testimony provided by medical scientists." The Society also pointed to the fact that New Jersey had recently abolished the death penalty.  Currently, the American Medical Association Code of Medical Ethics states: "A physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution."  The New Jersey delegation is scheduled to speak for the resolution at the AMA's annual meeting in June 2010.

The Death Penalty Information Center has recently updated its information packet entitled "Death Penalty Resources for Communities of Faith."  This packet was initially developed to help a wide spectrum of religious groups address the death penalty by providing information, discussion questions, and multi-media resources. These materials offer a framework useful for any discussion of capital punishment and do not directly involve religious or moral instructions.  Each packet contains a CD with statements on the death penalty from various religious denominations, death penalty fact sheets in English and Spanish, and answers to questions about the death penalty.  It also includes video clips, bulletin inserts, and discussion guides on four key death penalty issues: Innocence, Race, Victims and Costs.

The packet has been praised by such religious leaders as Bill Mefford of the United Methodist Church, Rabbi Leonard Beerman, and Sister Helen Prejean, who said, "The death penalty is one of the most critical issues of our time, and people of all faiths should contribute to the dialogue. The Death Penalty Information Center has rendered a wonderful service by offering religious leaders the key tools they need for raising this issue with their congregations.”

A recent article in Parade magazine looked at the cost of the death penalty, especially in light of the budgetary crises confronting most states in today's economy. New Mexico and New Jersey recently abolished the death penalty, and costs played a significant role in their decisions. New Mexico State Rep. Gail Chasey (D., Albuquerque) noted, “We can put that money toward enhancing law enforcement, public works, you name it." In New Jersey a commission found that using the alternative sentence of life without parole would save the state $1.3 million per inmate in incarceration costs alone because a death row facility requires more personnel to operate. Finally, a recent study in North Carolina found that the state could save at least $11 million a year by repealing the death penalty.

In 2009, 52 prisoners (out of the total 3,279 on death row across the country) were executed. “People tend to think, ‘Oh, you get the death penalty, then there’s an execution,’” said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. “But more often than not, the death penalty turns out to be a very expensive form of life imprisonment."  Read full text below.

In an opinion piece in the News & Observer, Professor Frank Baumgartner of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, recently wrote that the declining use and high costs of the death penalty in the state put into question the wisdom of retaining the punishment in North Carolina. Baumgartner noted that while murder rates in the state have remained relatively unchanged, the number of capital punishment trials and death sentences have declined sharply. Prosecutors formerly sought the death penalty in 10%-12% of all murders but now seek it in less than 2% of the cases. Juries have likewise moved away from imposing death sentences. In 1996, 57% of all death penalty trials ended with the death penalty, a stark difference from the 8% in 2008.

Baumgartner cited a recent report by Duke University economist Philip Cook that estimated a statewide savings of $11 million annually if North Carolina abolished the death penalty. Baumgartner wrote, "Considering that prosecutors have been requesting death less and less, and that juries have been even more sparing in their willingness to impose it, Cook's estimate takes on additional meaning. If we can save that much money by making such a small change from current practices, why not?"  Read full text below.