Is it that the State of Georgia executed an innocent man last month? Is it the dawning realization that the risk of executing an innocent person exists in many cases beyond Troy Davis? Is it that race cannot help but to seep into the consideration of who gets executed and who gets to live? Is it that the quality of the lawyering and not the seriousness of the crime determines who gets executed? Is it that many family members of murder victims have said not to execute in their names? Or is it the simple realization that the state killing people does not teach its citizens not to kill?

Whatever the reasons, Americans are coming around to the thinking of most other nations that the death penalty is an anachronism that can be left to the dustbin of history. In the wake of New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Illinois' recent repeals of the death penalty — and with possible repeal in California in sight — two new polls show significant declines in national support for the death penalty.

In a recent CNN poll, only 48 percent of respondents preferred a death sentence over a sentence of life without parole, down from 56 percent seven years ago. Meanwhile, fully 50 percent of respondents now believe life without parole is the preferable punishment. A recent Gallup poll reflected this same downward trend (though with more support for the death penalty). It found that now only 61 percent of Americans approve of using the death penalty for persons convicted of murder, down from 64 percent last year — the lowest level of support since 1972.

With these polls as further evidence that our message is taking the hold, the ACLU will continue to work to show that the death penalty is unjust, unwise and unnecessary.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misworded the findings of the CNN poll. This has been corrected.

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On September 30, 2011, a unanimous Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered a new trial for ACLU client Montez Spradley. Spradley, a young African-American man, has always maintained his innocence in the 2004 murder of a 58-year-old white grandmother in Birmingham, Alabama. No physical evidence or eyewitness testimony connected him to the murder.

Reversing Spradley's conviction and death sentence on four separate grounds, the court recognized that multiple errors in his trial resulted in a "miscarriage of justice." The prosecution's case against Spradley was alarmingly thin and riddled with inconsistencies, and the court found that the bulk of it was "improperly admitted."

This case also raised the issue of judicial overrides: though Spradley's jury convicted him on the basis of this improperly admitted evidence, it did not think he should die. Ten out of 12 jurors at the trial recommended he receive a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. Unfortunately, the trial judge rejected the jury's strong support for a life sentence, overriding the recommendation and sentencing Spradley to death. Spradley's appeal raised numerous challenges to the judge's override in his case, but the appellate court's decision to order a new trial altogether meant it did not need to address this issue.

A report released earlier this year by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) illustrated the unreliable, biased and arbitrary nature of such judicial overrides in Alabama, which are sadly all too common.

EJI's report also revealed a disturbing trend among life-to-death override cases in Alabama: most occurred when the victim was white, as in Spradley's case, even though most homicide victims in Alabama are black. The override system in Alabama is also largely responsible for the state leading the country in death sentences and executions per capita. More than 20 percent of Alabama's condemned prisoners landed on death row though their juries voted for life. Fortunately, at least for now, Spradley will not be among them.

In ordering a new trial for Spradley, the Alabama court took very seriously the weak evidence used to convict him. The decision was a refreshing victory in the wake of Troy Davis's recent execution in neighboring Georgia, despite substantial concerns about his guilt.

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Twenty years ago this week, Warren McCleskey, an African-American man convicted of killing a white police officer in Atlanta, was executed in the state of Georgia. His case became famous for highlighting the gross racial discrimination in Georgia's death penalty system, and for revealing the remarkable indifference of the United States Supreme Court to the evidence of racism in death penalty cases.

Georgia chose a tragic way to remember the anniversary with last week's execution of Troy Davis, also an African-American man convicted of killing a white police officer despite serious concerns about his guilt. Davis's execution should cause us great concern, not only because he was likely innocent, but because the racial disparities observed in Georgia's death penalty system more than 20 years ago still resonate in Georgia — and the rest of the country — today.

In a case before the United States Supreme Court, McCleskey presented compelling evidence that Georgia's death penalty system was being administered in a racially discriminatory manner. The late David Baldus, a law professor at the University of Iowa, studied nearly 2,500 murder cases in Georgia, and found that defendants convicted of murdering white victims were over four times more likely to be sentenced to death as defendants charged with murdering black victims. Georgia valued white lives more than black lives.

The Court assumed the findings of the Baldus study to be true, but in a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Lewis Powell the Court dismissed the racial disparities as an "inevitable part of our criminal justice system." The discriminatory effect was not enough, the Court said. McCleskey had to show how racial bias had played a role in his particular case. In essence, the Court set the bar so high that a capital defendant could not show that race played a role in his sentence short of a declaration from the prosecutor that "I am seeking the death penalty against you because you killed a white person." Many observers condemned the decision.

The decision, turning on a single vote, has remained a stain on our criminal justice system ever since, as race continues to play an outsized role in death sentences and executions across the country. Asked years later after he had retired if there was one case in which he would change his vote, Justice Powell said McCleskey.

In 2009, with the passage of the landmark Racial Justice Act, the North Carolina legislature rejected the Supreme Court's assumption that racism was "inevitable." The Racial Justice Act gives capital defendants the opportunity to show through statistics and other evidence that race played a role in a capital defendant's death sentence. The ACLU is representing several capital defendants in North Carolina on their RJA claims.

We must never accept racism in the criminal justice system as "inevitable", particularly not when a human life is at stake. One day, the McCleskey decision will join the ranks of other shameful legal decisions in our country's history of race discrimination, like Dred Scottt v. Sandford and Plessy v. Ferguson. Until then, we will continue to expose the racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty.

For a different way to remember the anniversary of McCleskey's execution, watch for this upcoming film about McCleskey's mentorship in his final years of a young white teenager from the same Georgia town.

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We heard a lot last week about the MacPhail family who wanted Troy Davis killed despite his innocence. But what about the loved ones of murder victims who oppose the death penalty?

Why haven't we heard many, if any, media accounts from James Anderson's family? Mr. Anderson, a black man, was allegedly run over by a truck driven by Deryl Dedmon, a white teenager, in Mississippi this past summer. Barbara Anderson Young, Mr. Anderson's sister, wrote a letter to the local District Attorney on behalf of their family indicating the family's opposition to the death penalty, which is "deeply rooted in our religious faith, a faith that was central in James' life as well." The letter also eloquently asks that Dedmon be spared execution because the death penalty "historically has been used in Mississippi and the South primarily against people of color for killing whites." It continues, "[e]xecuting James' killers will not help balance the scales. But sparing them may help to spark a dialogue that one day will lead to the elimination of capital punishment." Why isn't more of a big deal made about families of murder victims' of horrific crimes — there is disturbing video of Mr. Anderson's beating and death — who do not believe state-sponsored murder is the right answer?

And then there was Lawrence Brewer, executed by Texas last week — the day after Georgia killed Troy Davis — for the dragging death of James Byrd. Members of Mr. Byrd's family opposed the death penalty, despite the racist and vicious nature of the killing. Of Brewer's remorseless — he said he had no regrets the day he was executed — Byrd's sister, Betty Boatner, said, "If I could say something to him, I would let him know that I forgive him and then if he still has no remorse, I just feel sorry for him." Byrd's daughter shared that she didn't want Brewer to die because "it's easy . . .(a)ll he's going to do it go to sleep" rather than live every day with what he did and perhaps one day recognize the humanity of his victim. James Byrd's son, Ross, points out "You can't fight murder with murder . . .(l)ife in prison would have been fine. I know he can't hurt my daddy anymore. I wish the state would take in mind that this isn't what we want."

Some victims are able to seek healing separate from vengeance through the court system and lethal poison. Many thoughtful criminal justice advocates, like Sister Helen Prejean, affirm that it is a more lasting and complete healing.

Believe it or not, there are actually two national organizations, Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation and Murder Victims Families for Human Rights, as well as a number of state-based ones, comprised of murder victims' families who oppose the death penalty.

Yesterday was the fifth annual National Day of Remembrance for Murder Victims with observations around the country (such as Arkansas and New York) that encourage families to remember loved ones without violence.

There are alternatives to meeting violence with more violence. And doesn't an eye for an eye make the whole world blind?

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