AP reports that the national trend is declining death sentences and executions. Will LWOP in Texas cause a further decline? If the murder rate has also declined, isn't the death penalty demonstrating it is effective?

See the story:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/D/DEATH_PENALTY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Common sense tells one that if murders are at a 40-year low, then there will be fewer capital murderers to get the death penalty.

Of course, that won't phase the people who continue to see that overall crime is also at its lowest sustained levels since the '60s and yet bewail the fact that prisons are full, as if there is no causal connection (See, New York Times).

You can lead a horse to logic, but you can't make it think!

It's long, so I'll just provide the link:

FW Weekly article

OK, so the criticisms of the death penalty are:

Not enough people get the death penalty;

or

Too many people get the death penalty;

or

It takes too long to impose the death penalty;

or

The death penalty moves too quickly;

or

Fill in the blank with anything but acknowledging your own personal opposition to the death penalty.

It is always surprising to me that so much focus is placed on the 1000 of so people who have been executed without a single mention of the number of all their victims. As we know, more often than not, the executed leave behind a trail of carnage. Yet in most of the articles we read their victims are lightly dismissed or completely disregarded.