This year’s developments regarding the death penalty – a de facto national moratorium, a state abolition and the smallest number of executions in more than a decade – have masked what may be a more lasting one. For the first time in the modern history of the death penalty, more than 60 percent of all American executions took place in Texas. Over the past three decades, the proportion of executions nationwide performed in Texas has held relatively steady, averaging 37 percent. Only once before, in 1986, has the state accounted for even a slight majority of the executions, and that was in a year with 18 executions nationwide. But this year, enthusiasm for executions outside of Texas dropped sharply. Of the 42 executions last year, 26 were in Texas. The remaining 16 were spread across nine other states, none of which executed more than three people. Many legal experts say the trend will probably continue. In the 10 years ending in 2004, Texas condemned an average of 34 prisoners each year – about 15 percent of the national total. In the last three years, as the number of death sentences nationwide dropped significantly, from almost 300 in 1998 to about 110 in 2007, the number in Texas has dropped along with it, to 13 – or 12 percent. Once an inmate is sent to death row, however, distinctive features of the Texas justice system kick in. “Execution dates here, uniquely, are set by individual district attorneys,” Dow said. “In no other state would the fact that a district attorney strongly supports the death penalty immediately translate into more executions.” Texas courts, moreover, speed the process along, said Jordan Steiker, a law professor at the University of Texas who has represented death-row inmates. “It’s not coincidental that the debate over lethal injections had traction in other jurisdictions but not in Texas,” Steiker said. “The courts in Texas have generally not been very solicitous of constitutional claims.”
The New York Times
Texas On Its Way to ‘Monopolizing’ Executions
(Dec. 26)
