because most states have an appeals process. the lawyers for the person on death row will keep delaying until the appeal gets heard. if its rejected they simply appeal to a higher court and delay as long as possible. they keep doing this as they go up the chain until they effectively run out of appeals then an execution date finally gets set. because of this bullshit there are people who have been on death row for up to 20 years. it comes out to about 5-10 executions scheduled per year because of the whole appeals process basically state/fed courts are fine with taxpayers footing the bill for their extended stays in prison as the appeals processes play out because they're deathly afraid someone will get executed who turned out to be innocent
United States