In October 2009, the American Law Institute (ALI) issued a decision withdrawing the death penalty provision of the Model Penal Code (MPC) after recognizing “the intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.” This decision was influenced by a report to the ALI by Professors Carol Steiker and Jordan Steiker, printed as Part II of this Special Feature.  The introduction in Part I describes the origins of the MPC’s death penalty provisions, the MPC’s role in Supreme Court death penalty jurisprudence, the events that occurred prior to the ALI’s withdrawal, and its potential implications.

Part II of this Special Feature is the authors’ unpublished paper that the ALI commissioned to inform its decision. The report highlights the major concerns related to the current death-penalty systems in the United States. Further, it illuminates concerns about the fairness and efficacy of the capital justice process more generally. The authors' conclusion, now echoed by the ALI, is that “the preconditions for an adequately administered regime of capital punishment do not currently exist and cannot reasonably be expected to be achieved.”