Marking a "grand" capital punishment milestone

This AP story details that the United States will "likely see its 1,000th execution in the coming days" since the modern death penalty system was restarted after the resolution of basic constitutional challenges.  The piece effectively explores concerns about race and innocence as the capital punishment system approaches this "grand" milestone.  (At this category archive, there is a lot more coverage of recent buzzing about a broad range of death penalty issues.)

UPDATE: The Death Penalty Information Center now has a lot of materials on the run up to the 1000th execution on its main webpage.  The DPIC also has this interesting report about those supporting a grant of clemency for Robin Lovitt in Virginia, who is now scheduled to be the 1000th person executed.