Introduction

There have been two diverging characteristics of capital punishment in the United States in the last several years. On the one hand, the actual implementation of capital punishment has become even less fair. On the other hand, press reportage and public awareness about pervasive problems with the death penalty system have greatly increased. These developments are not unrelated. The increasing unfairness of the United States' death penalty system is a major reason why that system has undergone increased scrutiny.

In view of these developments, support has grown for efforts to implement a moratorium on executions, and to use the time during which a moratorium is in place to undertake a comprehensive study of the capital punishment system and decide whether to retain it and, if so, in what form. In addition, support has grown for specific legislative and judicial reforms. Such support has increasingly come from what previously would have been extremely surprising sources. There is an increasing potential for dealing with capital punishment non-ideologically, by focusing not on whether one would support a non-existent, hypothetically idealised capital punishment system but rather on what we should do about the actual death penalty system.

There is a growing recognition that when one looks at capital punishment pragmatically, it is like Hans Christian Anderson's ‘emperor's new clothes’: there is nothing positive there in reality (as opposed to the idealised fantasy). If this trend continues, more United States jurisdictions could initiate moratoriums, and some might abolish capital punishment.