The title of this post is the title of this February 2014 report by the Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending concerning the sentencing policies and practices in a state that, as this article notes, "abolished the death penalty on March 1, 1847, making it the first U.S. state and possibly the first in a democratic country in the world to do so."
I thought it useful to spotlight this new report as we begin our transition from capital to non-capital sentencing as a reminder that (1) not all US states and localities are impacted by modern capital punishment debates and doctrines, that (2) all US states and localities are impacted by modern non-capital sentencing debates and doctrines, especially with respect to the impact and import of "unchecked discretion," and that (3) there might be a variety of dynamic and complicated relationships between how states with and without the death penalty approach modern non-capital sentencing debates and doctrines.
Sentencing Class @ OSU Moritz College of Law 