ABSTRACT
The decline in the application of the death penalty parallels a substantial decline in public support for capital punishment. It is impossible to say with certainty whether capital punishment significantly reduces the incidence of heinous crimes. Whatever views one may have on the efficacy of the death penalty as a deterrent, it clearly has an undesirable impact on the administration of criminal justice. As the abolition or the retention of the death penalty is being widely debated in the States, it is appropriate to point out several aspects of its administration that bear on the issue. The imposition of a death sentence is but the first stage of a protracted process of appeals, collateral attacks, and petitions for executive clemency. There is evidence that the imposition of the death sentence and the exercise of dispensing power by the courts and the executive follow discriminatory patterns.
