The American Bar Association's new President, Martha...

The American Bar Association's new President, Martha Barnett, urged the legal profession to support a moratorium on executions. "I am putting together a call for action," said Barnett, asking the nation's lawyers to support the ABA's 1997 resolution calling for the suspension of the death penalty. "No defendant should be executed until we assure that the imposition of the ultimate sanction is not the result of inadequate counsel or lack of due process," said Barnett, who also cited racial bias, racial profiling, and the execution of the mentally retarded and juvenile offenders as problems associated with capital punishment.