10 Executions in 30 Days: Is there no halt to the Texas Killing Machine ?

November 19, 2008

Texas is set to thin out its death row before the week is over. Since
mid-October Texas has executed eight inmates, with another two
scheduled for execution by the end of this week. That's a total of
ten executions in a little over thirty days, a new record even for
the country's most active death penalty state.

The high rates of Texas executions seen in October and November are a
result of the logjam created when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively
halted lethal injections around the country while it decided whether
the killing method was unconstitutionally inhumane earlier this year.
The Supreme Court's 7-2 decision last April held that injection was
not unconstitutionally cruel and allowed executions to resume. Since
then 17 executions have been carried out in Texas alone this year,
the most in the nation.

Texas leads the nation by far in number of executions overall.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since the U.S
Supreme Court ruling in 1976 that allowed executions to resume after
a four-year period during which they were considered
unconstitutional, there have been 1132 executions in the United
States, one of the highest numbers anywhere in the world. Texas has
performed 422 of those executions, almost 40 percent of the national
total. By comparison, Virginia, the second largest executioner, has
conducted 102 since 1976.

A Southern phenomenon

There have been 33 executions so far this year, and except for the
two executions that took place in Oklahoma, and the one that took
place today in Ohio, all of the executions have been in the South
(including 17 in Texas, 4 in Virginia, 3 in Georgia, 2 in Florida, 2
in South Carolina, and 2 in Mississippi) . At least 12 cases have been
granted stays of executions in the past two months, including Troy
Davis, whose execution in Georgia was halted by the U.S. Supreme
Court. The South, plus Oklahoma, has performed 80 percent of all
executions since 1977, according to the Death Penalty Information
Center. Texas and Virginia alone account for 45 percent of all
executions.

Executions are a Southern phenomenon and they definitely have a
racialized component. Sixty-six percent of all people on Texas's
Death Row are non-white. Out of all the executions in Texas since
1982, no white person has ever been executed solely for the murder of
an African-American.

Despite the high numbers of executions this year (which will total
out at about 19), 2008 overall is not a record year for executions in
Texas. When George W. Bush was governor, Texas executed an average of
25 convicts a year, culminating in 40 executions in 2000, reports the
Associated Press. Since then, the state has averaged about two dozen
a year.

Amnesty International has called the spate of executions during this
historic election month a 'chilling reminder' of human rights
failings of how much the country has to do to improve its human
rights record. On top of the three executions that have already taken
place in Texas this November, just this week a judge declined to
grant an injunction that would have stopped Kentucky's first
execution in nearly 10 years. That execution is scheduled for this
Friday.

Executions by Region
South: 933
Midwest: 128
West: 67
Northeast: 4
Texas & Virginia: 524
(Source: Death Penalty Information Center)

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