Among the many year-end statistics, one of the most startling is that more than 60 percent of the American death penalty executions in 2007 took place in Texas. Mainers can take pride in the fact that their state hasn’t had an execution since it hanged three murderers in 1887.

Throughout most of the country, governors, judges and prosecutors have increasingly turned against capital punishment. In Texas, the culture has generally supported the death penalty, as well as the prompt imposition of execution.

Some writers have explained the high number of Texas executions by citing its high murder rate: 5.9 per 100,000 of population compared with 1.7 for Maine. But critics say that the many Texas murders merely prove that capital punishment does not work as a deterrent.

The rate of state executions nationally rose sharply in the early 1980s after several years in which there were only one or two or none at all. They peaked in 2000, when there were 85, and have slowly gone down to 42 in 2007. The reduction is partly because of doubts of its deterrent value, partly because of the high cost of conducting a capital case – far more than the expense of lifetime imprisonment – and partly because of a rash of wrongful executions. DNA investigations have frequently found death-row prisoners to be innocent.

Federal executions were halted in 1963 but resumed in 1988. Since 2000, the Bush administration has authorized an average of 40 capital prosecutions a year and sentenced 32 federal defendants to death.

New Jersey abolished the death penalty in December, after a legislative commission had concluded that capital punishment is a poor deterrent and “inconsistent with evolving standards of decency.” New York’s Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional in 2004. Several other states have been considering moratoriums or outright abolition.

Maine abolished the death penalty in 1876, reinstated it in 1882, and ended it again in 1887 in a wave of horror over the hanging of three murderers. There have been many unsuccessful efforts since then to reinstate the death penalty, most recently in 1979.

The Gallup Poll found last October that 69 percent of Americans responded “yes” when asked, “Are you in favor of the death penalty for a person convicted of murder?” This despite the remarkably consistent opposition to capital punishment by law enforcement authorities, judges, prosecutors and legislative majorities.

Most developed countries have abandoned capital punishment, considering it barbaric, immoral and economically unsound. But it flourishes in Iran, North Korea and China.

In America, outrage over a brutal murder can arouse powerful sympathy for victims and families, plus, it must be added, a demand for revenge. That must be balanced against the cost and ineffectiveness of capital punishment.