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December 2, 2008 12:18:09 PM CST

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Texas Tallies 60% of Executions

Posted Dec 26, 07 4:47 AM CST in US 

(Newser) – As the rest of the country backed away from applying the death penalty in 2007, Texas kept up its customary pace, making the state responsible for an astounding 60% of all executions in the US. Of last year's 42 executions, 26 were in Texas, the New York Times reports. In other states, rising doubts about the humaneness of lethal injections and the fairness of sentencing have undermined support, even as a series of Supreme Court rulings eventually led to a moratorium this fall.

Some experts predict a time when virtually all executions will be exacted in Texas. “The reason that Texas will end up monopolizing executions,” one defender of death-row inmates in the state told the Times, “is because every other state will eliminate it de jure, as New Jersey did, or de facto, as other states have.”

Source New York Times

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Nebraska's electric chair is seen in Lincoln, Neb., Monday, April 16, 2007. While enthusiasm for capital punishment appears to be strong in Texas, Nebraska lawmakers believe capital punishment may be...   (Associated Press)
The "death bed" in the death chamber is separated by bars, foreground, from the witness viewing room at the Walls Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections in Huntsville, Texas. The state carries out...   (Associated Press)
Michael Richard, the last man executed in Texas before a federal moratorium. (AP Photo/Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice, file)   (Associated Press)
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Texas • US Supreme Court • death penalty • New Jersey • moratorium • National District Attorneys Association • Death Penalty Information Center


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