Abstract moral arguments have never had much weight in discussions about America’s death penalty, at least not in America. Amnesty International has lead a long but futile campaign to raise consciousness about the brutalities inflicted in American prisons and to have them, and the death penalty, recognised as human rights abuses. A minority of Americans oppose the death penalty, but even they seldom aim their criticism at the rationale behind the practice of punishing the guilty with death. Instead, their reservations have to do with the possibility of occasionally executing innocent people. Recently the American death penalty has come under renewed scrutiny precisely because increasing evidence of innocence on death row has raised doubts about the legal processes by which the death sentence is handed down. Racial disparities have also caused concern.