Incoming ABA president backs moratorium on US death penalty sentences

US lawyers should take a stand to force a moratorium on death penalty sentences being carried out until they can be shown to be fairly imposed, incoming ABA president Martha Barnett said this week.Describing it as a key initiative for her year of office, Ms Barnett, a partner at leading US firm Holland & Knight, said although the ABA did not have a position on the death penalty, it did have a clear position on the kind of procedures and safeguards which should be in place when it was in issue.Racial discrimination, the right to a competent counsel with death penalty experience and proper funding for lawyers doing death penalty cases are all issues that need to be addressed before any other death penalty sentences are carried out, she said.'No defendant should be executed until we are sure that the imposition of the ultimate sanction is not a result of inadequate counsel or lack of due process.

We cannot ignore that there is unfairness in the way the death penalty is imposed in this country.

Lawyers have the responsibility to solve those problems,' she said.

Sue Allen