Lots of death penalty talk in state legislatures … while Texas keeps up record execution pace

I am having a hard time keeping up with all the death penalty reform legislation making its way through statehouses these days, but here are headlines that seem to capture some of the latest highlights:

• From the Baltimore Sun here, “Senate endorses ‘compromise’ on death penalty repeal”
• From the Hartford Courant here, “Lawmakers revisit death penalty”
• From the Kansas City Star here, “Kansas death penalty bill on hold”
• From the Reno Gazette Journal here, “Bill puts death penalty on hold”

It is not clear that all of this legislative activity will likely change the basic realities of death penalty administration in the United States because few of the states talking seriously about reform have a robust capital case docket or death row.  Still, the fact that so many legislators in so many states now feel comfortable talking about reform or repeal serves as another sign of the changing capital times.

Meanwhile, as this AP article details, Texas is about to execute another inmate tonight:

The convicted killer of a Houston man gunned down during a botched burglary was headed to the Texas death chamber Wednesday evening. Kenneth Wayne Morris, whose 38th birthday was Wednesday, was condemned for the 1991 fatal shooting of James Adams, 63….

Morris would be the 10th condemned murderer executed in Texas this year and the second in as many nights to receive lethal injection in the nation’s most active death penalty state…. Two more executions are set for next week in Texas.

Texas is on a record pace to break its own modern record for the number of executions in one state in one year.