300...the benchmark of a good hitter...

Texas prepares for 300th execution since revival of death penalty

LIVINGSTON -- Convicted killer Delma Banks could become a historical footnote Wednesday night when he's scheduled to die by injection.

He's in line to become the 300th Texas prisoner executed since the state resumed capital punishment in 1982.

Banks has been on death row since 1980 for killing 16-year-old Wayne Whitehead of Texarkana area and then stealing the victim's car.

Michael Dewayne Johnson had been scheduled to be No. 300 until he and another death row inmate got temporary reprieves last month.

In the first two months of this year, Texas put nine men to death and is on pace to break its record of 40 executions carried out in 2000.

The 300 Texas executions account for more than one-third of all the executions in the nation since 1976.