Interesting sentencing doings at this week’s ALI annual meeting

As regular readers may know, The American Law Institute has been working on a revision of the sentencing provisions of the Model Penal Code for nearly a decade.  And, as detailed in this tentative agenda, this week’s annual meeting of the ALI includes another presentation and discussion of a draft of the new proposed MPC sentencing provisions.  (Background on the ALI sentencing project can be accessed at this link.)

As the 2009 meeting agenda also shows, however, there is an even more notable sentencing item on the ALI’s schedule: the presentation of a capital punishment report and a “vote on Council recommendation that ALI withdraw Model Penal Code § 210.6.”   As MPC fans know, § 210.6 is the provision of the MPC that sets forth a whole bunch of rules for the administration of the death penalty.

Valuably, the ALI has made publicly available at this link its “Report of the Council to the Membership of The American Law Institute On the Matter of the Death Penalty.”  This report is quite interesting for a variety of reasons, and I may comment on its substance in future posts.  For now, however, I want to set forth its trio of recommendations to the ALI membership:

A.  The Council recommends to the ALI membership that the Institute withdraw § 210.6 of the Model Penal Code. When a motion to that effect is presented at the 2009 Annual Meeting, the Council recommends that those present vote in favor.

B.  The Council further recommends that if a motion that the Institute endorse or oppose the abolition of capital punishment is presented for a vote at the 2009 Annual Meeting, the members present vote against that motion.

C.  The Council reports that there are no plans to begin an ALI project to draft language that would revise or replace § 210.6 or otherwise address the subject of capital punishment.