Seeking capital punishment predictions for 2008

As I may document in future posts, 2007 was quite a year for the death penalty.  Notably, my prediction in early January that we would likely have less than 46 executions because of lethal injection litigation proved prophetic.  But I did not expect that the year would end with New Jersey becoming the first state to legislatively abolish the death penalty in four decades.  Building on these developments, this Reuters article tries to predict the capital future:

New Jersey’s abolition vote this week highlights scrutiny of the death penalty in America, and analysts say it could be a small step in the direction of an eventual nationwide ban. But with capital punishment still on the books in 36 states, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, and broad political support for putting the worst offenders to death, the road to abolition will be long.

“Ultimate abolition is indeed a long way off,” said Stuart Banner, a professor at the UCLA School of Law and author of “The Death Penalty: An American History.” “I’d be very surprised if the (Supreme) Court casts any doubt any time soon on the constitutionality of capital punishment in general.”

New Jersey on Thursday became the first state legislature since the 1960s to abolish the death penalty. Coming on top of an unofficial moratorium on executions, some had questioned whether the move by New Jersey was a step toward national abolition. The unofficial moratorium has been in place since just after the Supreme Court said on September 25 that it would decide an appeal by two death row inmates from Kentucky arguing that the three-chemical cocktail used in lethal injections inflicted unnecessary pain and suffering. One convicted killer was executed in Texas hours later but none have been since then.

Though I am prepared to predict that the Baze litigation will ensure another year of relatively few executions, I am not sure what else we should expect in this arena in 2008.  I’d be grateful if informed (or even uninformed) readers might share their predictions.