the best way to have more executions is to have fewer people sentenced to death

Why are there so many on death row? Of the 38 states with death penalties, Florida is the only one that doesn't require juries to reach a unanimous decision on at least a portion of the death-sentence recommendation. The federal government also requires it.

"If I were pro-death penalty in Florida, the best way to have more executions is to have fewer people sentenced to death," Michael Radelet, a University of Colorado professor and a leading expert on Florida's death penalty, told the Times.

The Florida Supreme Court, in an October 2005 decision, suggested that the Florida Legislature make the death penalty a unanimous jury verdict. A bill filed in the 2006 session to do that didn't get very far. For a politician to suggest such a thing may bring accusations of being soft on crime.

That could be countered with a conservative response: It is fiscally prudent to sentence fewer people to death. Keeping an inmate for life in prison, even for as long as 40 years, costs but a fraction of the millions of dollars the state spends on legal appeals leading up to an execution.