New York prosecutors are seeking fewer executions--recognizing that enthusiasm for the death penalty is waning.

Among the reasons, according to one D.A.:

...prosecutors had come to understand that the suffering of murder victims' relatives is often prolonged in death-penalty cases because of the years of legal warfare. He said prosecutors were also keenly aware of the drain on their time and energy and the cost to the state.

"Particularly at a time of fiscal crisis," Mr. Brown said, "it is very difficult to justify taking experienced prosecutors away from handling other violent felonies."

The trend in New York is being mirrored around the country.

Across the country, other state prosecutors appear to be seeking the death penalty less often than they did in the 1990's, said Richard C. Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a group that says it is critical of the way the death penalty is carried out but takes no position on whether capital punishment should be permitted. Mr. Dieter said that evidence in Ohio, California, North Carolina and other states showed that state prosecutors have been seeking death less often.

"There is definitely a trend in other states, and the time line is very much the same" as it is in New York, with state prosecutors filing sharply fewer death penalty cases than they did in the late 1990's, Mr. Dieter said.

On the other side, behind the curve as always, is Attorney General John Ashcroft, who has directed his federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty more often--even when they recommended against it.

Update: From Saturday's Boston Globe article on death penalty opponents blasting Ashcroft for trying to nationalize the death penalty: