The American Bar Association (ABA) renewed its call for a nation­wide halt to exe­cu­tions fol­low­ing a series of state stud­ies that found seri­ous prob­lems in their death penal­ty sys­tems.

​“After care­ful­ly study­ing the way states across the spec­trum han­dle exe­cu­tions, it has become crys­tal clear that the process is deeply flawed. The death penal­ty sys­tem is rife with irreg­u­lar­i­ty,” said Stephen F. Hanlon (pic­tured), chair­man of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project.

During the past three years, the ABA has issued death penal­ty assess­ment reports in eight states: Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. The stud­ies were con­duct­ed by inde­pen­dent teams of for­mer judges, attor­neys, and aca­d­e­m­ic researchers. The reports revealed ways that each state failed to meet some of the basic stan­dards estab­lished by the ABA to ensure fair­ness and to min­i­mize the risk that inno­cent per­sons could be exe­cut­ed.


The ABA’s call for a nation­wide mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions was con­tained in a press release accom­pa­ny­ing their report detail­ing the find­ings of the state assess­ments. Among the key prob­lems cit­ed by the ABA were the following:

  • Spotty col­lec­tion and preser­va­tion of DNA evi­dence, which has been used to exon­er­ate more than 200 peo­ple, includ­ing many who were on death row
  • Misidentification by eyewitnesses
  • False con­fes­sions from defendants
  • Persistent racial dis­par­i­ties that make death sen­tences more like­ly when vic­tims are white.

(Associated Press, October 29, 2007). Read the ABA State Assessment Reports. See also Studies, Innocence, Arbitrariness, Race, and Representation.

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