Texas set for 300th execution since 1982

LIVINGSTON, Texas (AP) --Convicted killer Delma Banks could become a historical footnote Wednesday, when he is scheduled to die in what would be Texas' 300th execution since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.

So far this year, Texas has put nine men to death, setting the state on a pace to break its one-year record of 40 executions, in 2000. Last year, 33 inmates died by lethal injection.

"It's not shocking any more," said Michael Dewayne Johnson, who was scheduled to be No. 300 until he and another death row inmate got temporary reprieves last month. He was condemned for killing a gas station attendant near Waco in 1995.

"Most people don't even know unless they're involved. There's just a vague mention of it in the paper," he said.

The Texas total is more than one-third of all the executions in the nation since 1976, when a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to resume capital punishment.

Over that period, the pace of executions in Texas has accelerated.

Almost 13 years passed between Charlie Brooks, execution No. 1, and Harold Lane, No. 100, in 1995. It took less than five years for Texas to get to No. 200, Earl Heiselbetz, in January 2000.

Now it will be just over three years to reach the 300th execution, if not Banks -- sentenced in 1980 for killing a 16-year-old and stealing his car -- then almost certainly one of 10 other convicts on the current execution schedule.

The faster pace is fueled mostly by changes in appeals procedures since the mid-1990s that have imposed stricter deadlines on court filings and allow appeals to be considered simultaneously in state and federal courts.

Also, as the death penalty has survived court challenges, fewer areas of appeal are left.

When the Supreme Court opens a new door to avoiding the death penalty -- such as last year's ruling barring execution of mentally retarded inmates -- prisoners swarm to it.

Sometimes it works. Gregory Van Alstyne, scheduled to be No. 298, received a reprieve last month by asserting he is mentally retarded.

Sometimes it doesn't. Richard Head Williams instead became No. 298 on February 25 after unsuccessfully raising the same claim, among others.

Capital punishment has been undergoing closer scrutiny nationwide as recent studies have questioned the fairness of the process and new technology, such as DNA testing, has revealed its errors.

Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan issued a blanket commutation of sentences for the nearly 170 inmates of Illinois' death row. In that state, 13 men who had been condemned to death after 1977 were later exonerated.

In Texas, the scrutiny has focused on cases like that of Calvin Burdine, who was condemned by a Houston jury for the 1983 murder of his gay lover. A federal judge threw out the conviction and ordered a new trial because Burdine's court-appointed lawyer slept during parts of his trial.

Banks has argued that his court-appointed trial attorney didn't present adequate evidence to keep him off death row, but the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said there was other evidence to support the jury's decision.

Texas also has come under fire for executing foreign nationals who weren't allowed to contact their consulates for legal assistance, a violation of international agreements, execution foes say. Prosecutors say murder in Texas makes foreigners subject to Texas law.

Another controversy is the execution of prisoners who murdered when they were 17. Under Texas law, they are adults.

A bill pending in the Texas Legislature would put a moratorium on the death penalty and order a study of the issue; however, the governor, Rick Perry, opposes halting capital punishment.

"He thinks it's an appropriate punishment in the most heinous of crimes," said spokeswoman Kathy Walt.

Since Perry became governor in December 2000, 59 convicts have been executed. During George W. Bush's six years as governor, 152 were put to death.

"All the people executed ... nobody knows who the person is," said death row inmate Bobby Cook. "Three-hundred. That's all they're going to remember."

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