Jurors and the Death Penalty

This article highlights the growing trend of North Carolina jurors to opt for life in prison rather than the death penalty.  According to the article:

N.C.'s Death Row is up by 1

Standards of decency have evolved somewhat," said Danielle Carmen, the assistant director of Indigent Defense Services. "I just think there's been this national movement, just toward being more and more selective in identifying what is the ‘worst of the worst' and which cases should even be exposed to the death penalty."

Last week Time ran a similar article noting that in Texas and nation-wide death penalty verdicts are down.

Is Texas Changing Its Mind About the Death Penalty?

"The tide has changed," Hirschorn says. "It used to be fashionable to say, 'I support the death penalty.' It used to be unfashionable to say, 'I am against the death penalty.'"