The American Law Institute, comprised of 4000 judges, lawyers, and law professors who shape and help promote consistency in the law throughout the United States, recently disavowed the intellectual framework for the modern death penalty system.
ALI created the model law and standards for capital punishment in the 1960's. Observing that the system could not provide both individualized sentencing decisions and systemic fairness - and noting its racial disparities, enormous expense, lack of competent legal representation, risk of executing innocent people, and judicial electoral politics - the group concluded that the American death penalty system is irretrievably broken.