American Bar Association Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities

RECOMMENDATION

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association calls upon each juris­dic­tion that impos­es cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment not to car­ry out the death penal­ty until the juris­dic­tion imple­ments poli­cies and pro­ce­dures that are con­sis­tent with the fol­low­ing long­stand­ing American Bar Association poli­cies intend­ed to (1) ensure that death penal­ty cas­es are admin­is­tered fair­ly and impar­tial­ly, in accor­dance with due process, and (2) min­i­mize the risk that inno­cent par­ties may be executed:

(i) Implementing ABA ​“Guidelines for the Appointment and Performance of Counsel in Death penal­ty Cases” (adopt­ed Feb. 1989) and Association poli­cies intend­ed to encour­age com­pe­ten­cy of coun­sel in cap­i­tal cas­es (adopt­ed Feb. 1979, Feb. 1988, Feb. 1990, Aug. 1996);

(ii) Preserving, enhanc­ing, and stream­lin­ing state and fed­er­al court’s author­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty to exer­cise inde­pen­dent judg­ment on the mer­its of con­sti­tu­tion­al claims in state post-con­vic­tion and fed­er­al habeas cor­pus pro­ceed­ings (adopt­ed Aug. 1982, Feb. 1990);

(iii) Striving to elim­i­nate dis­crim­i­na­tion in cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing on the basis of the race of either the vic­tim or the defen­dant (adopt­ed Aug. 1988, Aug. 1991; and

(iv) Preventing exe­cu­tion of men­tal­ly retard­ed per­sons (adopt­ed Feb. 1989) and per­sons who were under the age of 18 at the time of their offens­es (adopt­ed Aug. 1983).

FURTHER RESOLVED, That in adopt­ing this rec­om­men­da­tion, apart from exist­ing Association poli­cies relat­ing to offend­ers who are men­tal­ly retard­ed or under the age of 18 at the time of the com­mis­sion of the offens­es, the Association takes no posi­tion on the death penalty.

*Resolution passed by ABA House of Delegates on February 3, 1997 by a major­i­ty of 280 to 119. See also, the text of the Report accom­pa­ny­ing the Resolution.