OK, I admit, the headline is a tad bit inflammatory, but being an opponent of the death penalty and considering the fact that Texas is responsible for 60% of all executions in the US on a yearly basis, I think it’s not overly inflammatory.

This is the first time in history. “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,” which decreases its significance a bit.

Anyway, of last year’s 42 executions, 26 took place in Texas. “The remaining 16 were spread across nine other states, none of which executed more than three people.”

Will the state ‘monopolize’ the death penalty? “David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston who has represented death-row inmates” says yes: “The reason that Texas will end up monopolizing executions is because every other state will eliminate it de jure, as New Jersey did, or de facto, as other states have.”

The main question, of course, is why is Texas leading the pack… by far? Richard C. Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center said that [t]here’s almost an aggressiveness about carrying out executions” in the state. What’s more, Professor Dow also explained: “Execution dates here, uniquely, are set by individual district attorneys.” This means that when a district attorney is a great proponent of the death penalty, you will automatically have more executions.

The good news, for those who oppose capital punishment that is, is that the number of executions in Texas have decreased. “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,” the New York Times reports.

Hopefully the trend will continue.