USA - The time prisoners spend on death row has nearly doubled during the past 2 decades

The time prisoners spend on death row has nearly doubled during the past 2 decades. Legal experts predict it will rise further as states review execution procedures and prisoners pursue lengthy appeals. Waits rose from 7 years in 1986 to 12 years in 2006, the latest Justice Department statistics show, a USA TODAY survey of state records through 2007 found. In California, wait times average nearly 20 years, a state commission report in June says. It costs about $90,000 more per year to house a death row inmate than other inmates. Of the 10 states with the most prisoners on death row, 5 launched their own reviews of lethal injection procedures in the past 2 years. Those resulted in suspensions or delays in executions. The 3 offenders executed in Alabama in 2007 spent an average of 23 years on death row. The California commission said excessive delays had rendered the nation's largest death penalty system "dysfunctional and in danger of collapse”.