from Frontline via Steve Gilliards's news blog Why Is Texas #1 in Executions?

"There are many legal and cultural explanations for why Texas executes far more people than any other state and is doing so at a pace that has no parallel in the modern era of the death penalty in the U.S. What follows is a summary of the analyses.

Texas has become ground zero for capital punishment. Between 1976 (when the Supreme Court lifted its prohibition on the death penalty) and 1998 Texas executed 167 people. Next in rank was Virginia which executed 60 during the same period.

Why do capital murder cases proceed through the Texas state court system with a speed unimaginable in other parts of the country? Brent Newton, in an article entitled 'Capital Punishment: Texas Could Learn a Lot from Florida,'[1] argues that there are three procedures unique to the state's judicial system that enable it to execute convicted murderers with astonishing frequency:

1. Texas' appellate judges are elected to office and hence serve according to the pleasure of the public. Not surprisingly, they require a record of toughness on criminals in order to win re-election. Also, there are many indications that elected appellate judges generally are of a lesser quality than their appointed counterparts in other states. Newton even claims that these elected judges do not carefully consider the complexities of each specific death penalty case"(more)

It appears that I may have been giving Bush too much blame for the lack of executive clemencies issued during his term as governor of Texas. Apparently most petitions do not survive the screening process before reaching the governor's desk. Of course, I sincerely doubt that it would have made much difference in any case. Dubya didn't approve any of the few petitions that survived the process.