Preface
 Besides lawyers, there are many people who wish to steer our society away from the use of the death penalty.  Each individual case adds fuel to the fire.  Every time there is a significant judicial decision or a vote by the legislators to further extend the reach of the death penalty, we revisit the question, “But what can I do?”  Many of us once felt we had the answers to guide ourselves and others in the arduous fight to bring fairness and civility to a process that is a priori unfair.  Now's the time to face reality.  It's the time to admit we are only on the threshold of understanding the questions.  The answers are, for now, beyond our grasp.
 Unfortunately, most members of the judiciary, including a majority of the Supreme Court, have not even advanced to the stage of seeking to learn the relevant questions.  To most of the judiciary, the death penalty presents a huge traffic jam in the criminal justice system.  Most judges seek only to alleviate the traffic jam.  Sadly, most of the judicial, legislative and executive guidance directs the traffic down the wrong way of a one-way street.  All of this misdirection is in the guise of correcting the “procedural malfunctions” that have inconvenienced the politics of “clean” executions.
 For abolitionists, the obvious perennial question is, “What can be done  to stop this death penalty process?”  A more painful inquiry is, “What should I do?”  For those who are neither opponents or proponent, the perennial question is, “Which side should I take?  Meanwhile, what should I do?”  These basic questions beg for more specific inquiries and precise answers.