SEASON 1

The Decline of the Death Penalty

The death penalty in the United States, both new convictions and executions, has declined through recent decades. In this episode, we explore the history of the death penalty and the various factors that are contributing to this decline. 

Death penalty expert and author of End of Its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice, Brandon Garrett, talks about this history and the revealing details of his data collection on capital punishment.  We are also joined by ALI’s past President Roberta Cooper Ramo and former Judge Christine Durham, who discuss ALI’s removal of the Death Penalty from the Model Penal Code, perhaps one of the earliest indications of the future of capital punishment.

SUPPLEMENTARY RESOURCES

Data on Death Sentencing Website

This resource website displays data concerning death sentencing in the United States from 1990 to present. Research from this data is included in Brandon Garrett’s book, End of its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice, published by Harvard University Press in Fall 2017.

End of Its Rope: How Killing the Death Penalty Can Revive Criminal Justice by Brandon Garrett

Today, death sentences in the U.S. are as rare as lightning strikes. In this book Brandon Garrett shows us the reasons why, and explains what the failed death penalty experiment teaches about the effect of inept lawyering, overzealous prosecution, race discrimination, wrongful convictions, and excessive punishments throughout the criminal justice system.

Report of the Council to the Membership of ALI On the Matter of the Death Penalty

The State of the Death Penalty

Garrett, Brandon L. and Desai, Ankur, The State of the Death Penalty (February 21, 2018). Notre Dame Law Review, Forthcoming.

Capital Jurors in an Era of Death Penalty Decline

Garrett, Brandon L. and Krauss, Daniel A. and Scurich, Nicholas, Capital Jurors in an Era of Death Penalty Decline (March 6, 2017). Yale Law Journal Forum, Vol. 126, p. 417, 2017; UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper No. 2018-31; Duke Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Series.

The American Death Penalty Decline

Garrett, Brandon L. and Jakubow, Alexander and Desai, Ankur, The American Death Penalty Decline (February 2, 2017). Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. 105, 2017; Virginia Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper No. 2017-06.