Interesting capital reviews in California and Texas

In addition to the strong work of DPIC reviewing death penalty developments in 2005, interesting aspects of the year in capital punishment in California and Texas is effectively examined through a number of other helpful sources:

• Over at Criminal Appeal, Jonathan Soglin here provides a comprehensive review of the 2005 work of the California Supreme Court in death penalty cases.  He details that the court "issued decisions in 26 death penalty appeals, affirming all 26 death sentences."

• The Dallas Morning News today has this fascinating article, entitled "Death penalty losing capital: Sentences decline in Dallas, state, nation amid new limits, alternatives."  The article is filled with interesting tidbits of information about the death penalty in Texas.  Consider:

In Texas, death sentences have dropped from 37 in 1999 to 15 in 2005, the fewest additional inmates on death row since 1991....

Intentional or not, the decline in death penalty cases has saved Dallas County taxpayers about $1 million in trial costs this year, according to county estimates based on the county's historic trend of five such cases a year.