Capital punishment, the moratorium movement, and empirical questions: Looking beyond innocence, race, and bad lawyering in death penalty cases

This article briefly explores the underpinnings of the contemporary capital punishment moratorium movement and examines executive and legislative responses to calls for a halt to executions, including suggestions for studying the death penalty process. Although most investigations focus on select issues like innocence, ineffective counsel, and race bias, this article suggests that a wide-ranging constellation of issues should be investigated in any legitimate attempt to evaluate the administration of the death penalty. The article canvasses this broader sweep of issues, discusses related research evidence, and then considers the policy implications of conducting such a thorough empirical assessment of the administration of capital punishment in this country.