Suicides pass executions on death row in California

I suppose it is no surprise to learn that it is very depressing to be on death row.  However, as this AP story documents, death row suicides in California have reached a notable modern milestone:

The latest death at San Quentin Prison marked a gruesome landmark that underscored just how jammed up the state’s capital punishment system has become: Suicides have now supplanted executions as the second leading cause of death on California’s death row.  Tony Lee Reynolds’ death Sunday was the 14th suicide, one more than the number of condemned inmates executed in California, since the state reinstated capital punishment in 1978.

There are now 666 inmates on death row, according to the Department of Corrections, and executions have been halted now for 16 months by a federal judge who ordered prison officials to revise their lethal injection procedures to ensure inmates don’t suffer unnecessarily…. Thirty-eight inmates have died of natural causes, the leading cause of death… [and] the average stay on death row is 17.5 years before execution.

Some recent related posts:

• Documenting and dissecting death’s delay
• Reactions to another Ohio execution delay
• More coverage of death delayed