"A Moral and Practical Failure"

"In 1962, as part of the Model Penal Code, the institute created the modern framework for the death penalty, one the Supreme Court largely adopted when it reinstituted capital punishment in Gregg v. Georgia in 1976. Several justices cited the standards the institute had developed as a model to be emulated by the states."

Adam Lipnik in The New York Times reports on the decision of the American Law Institute to abandon the death penalty.