36. ABA ASSESSES DUE PROCESS AND FAIRNESS IN STATE DEATH PENALTY SYSTEMS
The ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project released its first death penalty assessment reports in 2005-2006. The assessments project, which began in January 2004, seeks to evaluate, preliminarily, the extent to which certain U.S. capital jurisdictions’ death penalty systems comport with minimum standards of fairness and due process. In conducting the state-based assessments, the Moratorium Project is using as a benchmark the ABA Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities’ 2001 publication, Deathwithout Justice: A Guide for Examining the Administration of the Death Penalty in the United States (the "protocols"). The assessment reports are the most comprehensive compilation of death penalty data in the states being examined.
Although the assessments focus only on particular issues, they have yielded essential information and important insights into death penalty laws and processes. To the extent flaws are identified, the findings have served as bases from which to launch more comprehensive self-examinations of death penalty-related laws and processes that the ABA is encouraging capital jurisdictions to undertake, as well as to call for moratoriums and/or reform.
Additional information on the project, including state-by-state information as it is revealed, is available in an online media kit.
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