times, they are a changing

it seems, anyway, for the death penalty. the Death Penalty Information Center points out that in 2005:

The number of death sentences handed down is estimated to be 96 -- down 60 percent since the late 1990s and the fewest number of sentences in one year since executions were allowed to resume in 1976.

The majority of states with the death penalty did not carry out a single execution.

New York refused to reinstate the death penalty and New Jersey took an important step toward, in effect, abolishing it.

Texas became the 37th out of 38 death penalty states to adopt the sentencing option of life without parole.

The U.S. Supreme Court abolished the juvenile death penalty, in effect commuting the sentences of 71 people to life without parole or, in some cases, very lengthy prison terms of at least 35 years.