Morales

MEMORANDUM OF INTENDED DECISION; REQUEST FOR RESPONSE FROM DEFENDANTS

I

New issues in American society have generated as much impassioned debate as the death penalty. At one end of the spectrum, abolitionists condemn the intentional taking of human life by the State as barbaric and profoundly immoral. At the other, proponents see death, even a painful death, as the only just punishment for crimes that inflict unimaginable suffering on victims and their surviving loved ones. Even among those with less absolute positions, there are vigorous arguments about the social, penological, and economic costs and benefits of capital punishment.

Any legal proceeding arising in this context thus acts as a powerful magnet, an opportunity for people who care about this divisive issue to express their opinions and vent their frustrations. However, because courts (and particularly trial courts) exist not to resolve broad questions of social policy but to decide specific legal and factual disputes, it is important at the outset for this Court to make very clear what this ease is not about.

This case is not about whether the death penalty makes sense morally or as a matter of policy: the former…