I have been writing this professional conduct column for over 10 years, with and without co-authors, discussing topics from the mundane to the philosophical. This month, my co-author is Lynn Nichols, who is beginning a new practice representing respondents before the Disciplinary Board, and whose experience as a former homicide prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office makes her well suited to join me in this column, exploring a question of the ethics and morality of recent Justice Department decisions relating to the death penalty.