The American Bar Association recent­ly released its annu­al report, The State of Criminal Justice-2013, includ­ing a chap­ter on devel­op­ments in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in the United States. In that chap­ter, author Ronald Tabak focus­es on the con­tin­u­ing decline in death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions, recent inno­cence cas­es, and new voic­es who have spo­ken out about the death penal­ty. The chap­ter high­lights recent research on cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, includ­ing stud­ies that found racial dis­par­i­ties in death sen­tences in the fed­er­al and mil­i­tary death penal­ty sys­tems. The report also dis­cuss­es rel­e­vant cas­es from the U.S. Supreme Court, includ­ing Maples v. Thomas and Martinez v. Ryan, deal­ing with prop­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion in cap­i­tal cas­es. Tabak con­cludes that as the prob­lems sur­round­ing the death penal­ty con­tin­ue to grow, its elim­i­na­tion ​“deserves serious consideration.” 

Some of the themes cov­ered in the ABA Report are also addressed in DPIC’s Year End Report.

(R. Tabak, ​“Capital Punishment,” American Bar Association, in The State of Criminal Justice 2013 (2013)). See Studies.

Citation Guide