Before the Davis Execution Takes Place - James Fallows - National - The Atlantic: ") Please read Andrew Cohen's masterful explanation of the philosophies, practicalities, and politics of modern capital punishment. It is long but truly important, and among other things it clarifies why use of the death penalty nationwide has been declining, even as it has been on the rise in the South. (Since 1976, there have been four times as many executions in the South as in the rest of the country combined. Texas alone has accounted for nearly 40% of all U.S. executions in that period; together with Virginia, it accounts for almost half. Texas executed 17 last year; California, with more people and more crimes, has executed a total of 13 since 1976.)
One crucial part of Cohen's argument is that the kind of willful over-reach we see from the Georgia authorities in the Troy Davis case will eventually turn the national tide against the death penalty as a whole. He argues that the 1976 Supreme Court ruling making the death penalty permissible again was based on the faith that it would be carried out with utmost sober-minded care, even reluctance, and that operationally its workings would seem to be "fair." "
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