Texas still top state for the death penalty
Rick Halperin, director of SMU's Embrey Human Rights Program, talks about Texas as the top state for the death penalty.
By Anna M. Tinsley
With six executions scheduled for the first three months of 2012 -- and more than twice as many executions as any other state on the books last year -- Texas is poised to continue leading the nation in executions despite a nationwide slowdown in capital punishment.
Despite dropping to a 15-year low in 2011, Texas continues to lead the nation in the number of executions with 13 even as questions are raised nationwide about the wrongful conviction of inmates and petitions call on the U.S. to abolish capital punishment. Last year, 43 prisoners were executed nationwide....
"Everybody knows Texas kills a lot of people," said Halperin, also a human-rights professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas....
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