Bump and Update: We wrote this on Friday, but since many readers don't read the Sunday magazine until Sunday, we are bumping it up.

The Sunday New York Times Magazine has another fascinating examination of the death penalty called In the Face of Death, by Alex Kotlowitz. It examines 12 pro-death jurors in a gruesome murder case who found the defendant guilty but voted for life over death.

Whether someone lives or dies is the ultimate of Solomonic decisions, and 33 of 38 death-penalty states entrust it to a jury rather than to a judge. What happens when 12 people who support the death penalty face it up close?

Over the past few years, detective work and advances in DNA technology have uncovered a frighteningly high number of wrongfully convicted, especially on death row. But there may be another, albeit quieter, revolution taking place, out of view, in jury rooms. The number of death sentences handed down has dropped precipitously, from a modern-day peak of 319 in 1996 to 229 in 2000, and then to 155 in 2001. And a study released just last month reported that in 15 of the last 16 federal capital trials, jurors chose life sentences over death.

The article examines the trend, concluding:

There are two factors, however, that more than anything else may help explain the decline in death-penalty sentences. One is the increasing availability of life without parole as an option, which all but three death-penalty states now offer. In polls, three-fourths of Americans say they believe in the death penalty. But when asked whether they'd support capital punishment if life without parole was an option, the number is reduced to half.

The other contributor, perhaps tougher to measure, is a development over the last decade: an increasing number of defense attorneys have become more skilled and resourceful in persuading jurors that the lives of their clients are worth saving.

The article also explores the use of "mitigation specialists," whom no capital lawyer worth his or her salt would be caught dead without: