In a recent address to lawyers and judges at a judi­cial con­fer­ence, retir­ing U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens explained the evo­lu­tion of his views on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the death penal­ty. Regarding his 2008 asser­tion that the death penal­ty should be abol­ished, Justice Stevens elab­o­rat­ed, ​“The risk of an incor­rect deci­sion has increased,” and that because of advances in DNA test­ing that have led to free­ing some inno­cent con­victs, ​“we’re more aware of the risk than we might have been before.” Justice Stevens also said that cap­i­tal juries are dom­i­nat­ed by peo­ple who favor the death penal­ty, and that the bru­tal­i­ty of the mur­ders that often lead to a cap­i­tal tri­al can put pres­sure on pros­e­cu­tors. While con­cur­ring with the major­i­ty opin­ion uphold­ing the use of lethal injec­tion as a method of exe­cu­tion in Kentucky in 2008, Justice Stevens nev­er­the­less con­clud­ed that ​“the death penal­ty rep­re­sents the point­less and need­less extinc­tion of life with only mar­gin­al con­tri­bu­tions” to soci­ety. (Baze v. Rees (2008), quot­ing Furman v. Georgia (1972)).

(D. Banks, ​“Stevens: Risk of wrong­ful sen­tences high­er,” USA Today, May 5, 2010). See also U.S. Supreme Court and New Voices.

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