Dallas Morning News – TEXAS VIEW: Texas’ grim death penalty milestone
Posted: Monday, June 24, 2013 5:00 am
BY: Dallas Morning News
Owing to its size and inclinations, Texas registers prodigious statistics, but none so bleak as what comes from the state’s pre-Civil War red-brick prison in Huntsville that houses the nation’s busiest execution chamber.
There, on Wednesday, Texas’ 500th execution since national reinstatement is set to be carried out. The life scheduled for termination belongs to Kimberly McCarthy, whose grisly murder of elderly neighbor Dorothy Booth of Lancaster brings the state to this grim milestone.
It’s one that no other state may ever touch. Virginia, second in terms of executions, is barely a fifth of the way there, and the pace of capital punishment has slowed nationwide, even in Texas.