The state of the death penalty in the state of California

California, the state with by far the largest death row in the nation, carried out one of the last executions in 2005, the first execution on 2006, and it has another execution scheduled for next month.  Nevertheless, this San Francisco Chronicle article reports that “officials say the short-term cluster of executions doesn’t foreshadow a long-term acceleration in a state where condemned prisoners are more likely to die of natural causes than of lethal injection.”

The SF Chronicle article provides an effective overview of the state of the death penalty in California.  It also breaks down the 60 executions in 2005 by state, which in turn suggests an excellent trivial question for death penalty buffs:  “What three states, behind perennial execution leader Texas, tied for the second highest number of executions in 2005?”   Any reader able to answer this question without looking it up wins my respect (and sympathy) for being an even bigger sentencing geek than me.