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A hard look at the nation's experience with capital punishment yields the sobering conclusion that the system is deeply flawed and begs for reform.
Having just passed a milestone in the administration of capital punishment in the United States-the 1,000th execution since the death penalty was reinstated 30 years ago-it is fair to ask some probing questions about how the system is working and, more to the point, what sort of effect the continued use of the death penalty has on the criminal justice system. As noted below, a hard look at the nation's modern experience with capital punishment yields the sobering conclusion that the system is deeolv flawed and bees for reform.
We are currently witnessing an unprecedented critique of the administration of capital punishment in the United States. A series of reports and recommendations by a number of organizations, blue ribbon committees, and gubernatorial study commissions press serious complaints about the administration of the death penalty and urge systemic reforms to address arbitrary sentencing patterns, the lack of adequate defense counsel, prosecution misconduct, the persistence of race as a factor in capital sentencing, and other problems.1 Even President George Bush, an enthusiastic supporter of capital punishment, acknowledged during the 2005 State of the Union Address that "people on trial for their lives must have competent lawyers by their side," an implicit recognition that many capital defendants do not.
A fair summary of these reports is that the current use of the death penalty is deeply flawed and cannot be remedied without systemic reforms. As a consequence, the reports invariably include a raft of recommendations directed to the bench and legislatures in death penalty jurisdictions. Some reports, like the recent ABA study of Georgia's death penalty system, call for moratoriums on the use of capital punishment pending implementation of recommendations regarding the jurisdiction being evaluated.2 Collectively, these reports pose a direct challenge to the criminal justice system-reform the system or abandon capital punishment. How death penalty jurisdictions respond to these critiques will illuminate just how committed we are to insuring that the death penalty is administered accurately and fairly, free of the corrosive effects of racial bias and arbitrariness.
The man who enjoys his coffee while reading that justice has been done...