The United States will this week carry out its 1,000th execution since the death penalty was reintroduced in 1976.
Three states - Texas, Virginia and Oklahoma - account for more than half of the 998 executions performed since 1977.
Texas alone has carried out 355. Early this morning Eric Nance was executed by injection in Arkansas for the killing and attempted rape of an 18-year-old in 1993.
John Hicks (49) was expected to become the 999th person killed today, having lost his chance for clemency for strangling his mother-in-law and suffocating his five-year-old stepdaughter while high on cocaine.
The 1,000th execution is scheduled for tomorrow in Virginia of a man convicted of fatally stabbing a pool hall manager with a pair of scissors.
Robin Lovitt's case attracted worldwide attention since he was sentenced in 1999. He claims that another man committed the murder and his lawyers have argued that DNA evidence used at his trial was illegally destroyed.
A recent Gallup poll found that 64 per cent of Americans favour the death penalty, down from 80 per cent in 1994.
David Elliott, spokesman for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said: "The annual execution rate has dropped 40 per cent from a high of 98 in 1999. More importantly, death sentences have declined 50 per cent since the late 1990s to around 150 a year."
Mr Elliott said: "The question is not whether we will abolish the death penalty but when? We predict it will be within 10 to 15 years. Our children will look back on this era with horror and embarrassment."
Since 1976, 122 people have been exonerated and released from death row. Opponents argue that capital punishment costs much more than the alternatives, including life without parole.
The current death row population in the United States stands at almost 3,500.