The details of playing God

Brian Palmer, Slate's Explainer columnist, asks: When a defendant is sentenced to death, what are his chances of actually being executed? Palmer writes: "The average killer is 28 years old at the time of his arrest, and it takes an average of 14 years between sentencing and execution. But these data include only those inmates whose executions were actually carried out; many are not. To put it into perspective, 323 people were condemned in 1996. Fourteen years later, in 2010, only 10 people were executed. It is not uncommon for inmates to spend more than 20 years on death row, and one man challenged his execution on the basis that a 32-year wait and repeated stays of execution constituted cruel and unusual punishment. So what happens to all these non-executed people? Most spend their lives in prison."