Is the death penalty on death row?

Is the death penalty on death row?

The scene outside the Huntsville unit of the Texas state penitentiary last Wednesday evening was a familiar one.



Police officers stood casually outside the imposing red-brick walls as a small group of passionate opponents of the death penalty railed against a punishment they say has no place in modern America.

Inside, a death row inmate, Hank Skinner, was due to be executed by lethal injection.

But with half an hour to go, word emerged that the Supreme Court in Washington had issued a last-minute stay of execution.

Skinner, convicted of the 1993 killing of his girlfriend and her two adult sons in Pampa, has always protested his innocence.

His French wife, Sandrine, expressed relief, but spoke of her anger at a process that could still result in her husband's execution.

"This system has got to stop," she told the BBC. "We are not going to stop until it's over."

The death chamber at Huntsville, which carries out all Texas death penalties, is still the busiest in the nation. Twenty-four prisoners were executed last year.

But across Texas, there has been a steep decline in the number of new death sentences handed down. There were just nine last year. In the late 1990s, as many as 48 people a year were sent to death row.

The statistics have led some campaigners to hope that the death penalty may itself be on death row.