The American Bar Association has released a new pub­li­ca­tion, The State of Criminal Justice 2017, an annu­al report exam­in­ing major issues, trends, and sig­nif­i­cant changes in America’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. In a chap­ter devot­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Ronald J. Tabak, chair of the Death Penalty Committee of the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, describes sig­nif­i­cant death penal­ty cas­es and devel­op­ments over the past year. Tabak reports on his­toric declines in new death sen­tences and in exe­cu­tions in the U.S.: new death sen­tences were at their low­est lev­el since 1973, with near­ly three-quar­ters con­cen­trat­ed in just five states — California, Ohio, Texas, Alabama, and Florida; and there were few­er exe­cu­tions than in any year since 1991. The chap­ter notes that only 27 coun­ties imposed any new death sen­tences in 2016, high­light­ing the small num­ber of coun­ties — 16 nation­wide — that pro­duced five or more death sen­tences in the first half of this decade, and describ­ing the ​“prob­lems per­me­at­ing” the admin­is­tra­tion of the death penal­ty in those juris­dic­tions. It also dis­cuss­es the poten­tial for fur­ther nation­al declines in new death sen­tences as a result of the elec­toral defeat of pros­e­cu­tors in four of the most pro­lif­ic death-sen­tenc­ing coun­ties, and their replace­ment with pros­e­cu­tors who have expressed ​“great skep­ti­cism about cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment.” Tabak’s chap­ter also includes sec­tions on ​“major court cas­es that will great­ly dimin­ish new death sen­tences,” oth­er key Supreme Court cas­es, leg­isla­tive activ­i­ty involv­ing death penal­ty issues, and the effects of death penal­ty mora­to­ria imposed by four gov­er­nors. Tabak says “[t]here is accel­er­at­ing recog­ni­tion of major sys­temic prob­lems with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment” and that “[t]he more that peo­ple know about the death penal­ty as actu­al­ly imple­ment­ed, the more they oppose it.” As a result, he says, the death penal­ty in prac­tice has increas­ing­ly ​“been attacked by peo­ple who have served in the judi­cia­ry or law enforce­ment, tak­en part in exe­cu­tions, writ­ten death penal­ty laws, or are polit­i­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive.” Ultimately, he con­cludes, ​“our soci­ety must decide whether to con­tin­ue with a penal­ty imple­ment­ed in ways that can­not sur­vive any seri­ous cost/​benefit analysis.”

(R. Tabak, ​“Capital Punishment,” The State of Criminal Justice 2017, July 2017.) See Studies.

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