From the New York Times today,

Texas, generally considered the leading death penalty state, actually sentences a smaller percentage of people convicted of murder to death than the national average, according to a new study. It found that the conventional view failed to take into account the large number of murders in Texas.

As a percentage of murders, Nevada and Oklahoma impose the most death sentences, at 6 and 5.1 percent. In Texas, the percentage is 2 percent. The rate in Virginia, another state noted for its commitment to capital punishment, is 1.3 percent. The national average is 2.5 percent; the median is 2 percent.

"Texas's reputation as a death-prone state should rest on its many murders and on its willingness to execute death-sentenced inmates," wrote the authors of the study, published in a new publication, the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. "It should not rest on the false belief that Texas has a high rate of sentencing convicted murderers to death."

And as it pertains to race,

Using the same analysis, the study concluded that blacks are actually underrepresented on the nation's death row. Blacks commit 51.5 percent of all murders nationally but constitute about 42 percent of death row inmates, the study found.

Finally, we just had to be number one at something, but we weren't...

Texas had about 38,000 murders from 1976 to 1998 in which people older than 16 were arrested, according to the study, which relied on F.B.I. data. Only California had more, about 50,000. The number of murders in Texas, more than anything else, explains the 776 death sentences that were issued during roughly the same period, the study concluded.

Ok, here's where we excel...

Prisoners on death row in Texas are more likely to be executed than in many other states. As of this week, Texas has executed 319 people since 1976. California, by contrast, sentenced 795 people to death from 1976 through 2002 and has executed only 10.

I still stand firmly against the death penalty. But I say that we should have lifetime sentences for murderers, and by lifetime, I mean lifetime.