AUSTIN, Texas -- OK, let's try this again, Texans. We now have one of the
highest execution rates in the entire world.
Here are the numbers according to Amnesty International and some math: In
2000, four countries around the world accounted for 88 percent of all the
executions --- the United States, Iran, China and Saudi Arabia. Nobody else
is even in the game, though there is no reliable information from Iraq.
In 2000, Texas alone, one state out of 50, was responsible for 47 percent
of the executions in America. Here are the best estimates for numbers per
capita (using the highest guess, not from Amnesty, of 1,700 executions in
China -- the number that sent the human-rights people into a frenzy over the
Beijing Olympics): Iran executes one for every 874,000 people, China
executes one for every 742,000 people, Texas executes one for every 521,000,
and the Saudis one for every 170,000. So we're not rock bottom, we're doing
better than the Saudis -- a role normally played for us by Mississippi.
Let's not try for the Olympics anytime soon.
I saw a great pro-death-penalty cartoon the other day in "Thaddeus and