A new study shows juries reject the death penalty in most federal cases.

Legal experts say the trend might have a number of explanations, like overreaching by prosecutors and some jurors' growing unease with the death penalty.

Update: We just notice two quotes in the article worth repeating as they come from former federal prosecutors. Jamie Orenstein was one of the prosecutors in the McVeigh and Nichols trials:

Alan Vinegrad, a former United States attorney in Brooklyn, said the recent statistics represented something larger. "It reflects that the tide is turning in this country with regard to attitudes about the death penalty," Mr. Vinegrad said. "There has been so much publicity about wrongfully convicted defendants on death row that people sitting on juries are reluctant to impose the ultimate sanction."

Mr. Orenstein, the former Justice Department official, said federal prosecutors should be more cautious. "It's a dangerous game the Department of Justice is playing here," he said, adding that the failed capital prosecutions were a poor use of resources and damaged prosecutors' credibility.

"We've got to assume," he said, "that if some juries are balking at death in overcharged cases, others are balking at conviction."