Not all the important turning points in America’s epic struggle over the death penalty get noticed immediately by the mass media and the public. A quiet blockbuster this year was the decision of the American Law Institute, a little-known but prestigious organization of lawyers and judges, to withdraw its approval for the standards created by the institute’s 1963 Model Penal Code to guide juries in the choice between long prison terms and execution.
Ordinarily, the decision of a non-governmental organization to reject a sentencing system it adopted in the early 1960s would richly deserve public obscurity. With states like New York and Massachusetts turning back efforts this decade to revive capital punishment, and with New Jersey and New Mexico abolishing their death penalties, why pay much attention to the American Law Institute? Because the institute has pulled the intellectual rug out from under the current system of deciding between life and death in 30 death-penalty states.
