Why do people sit on death row for so long?

Factual Questions
1

Okay, so, if/when the judge sentences Scott Peterson to death in the San Quentin State Prison in February, it’s likely he’ll die naturally on death row before being executed. The appeals process may not even start for years.

What??

What takes so long? Certainly the entire appeals process of many of those 650 men has run to the end by now, so what’s the hold up? Who’s to blame for the huge delay? I read something that said that at San Quentin, one person is executed about every three years.

Given that the process has been followed for many of these people, and I’m guessing the only hope a lot of them have is now on the shoulders of the Governator, why aren’t they being executed as required by the law? To me, it seems that once your final appeal runs out, your execution should be set for within a month, and you should immediately petition the governor. And when that fails, bam, the end.

Assuming that many of these men have either run out of avenues for appeal or don’t plan to pursue anymore, who’s to blame for the slowness? The warden?

(Note: Please don’t turn this into a debate on the ethics of the death penalty. It is the law in CA, and I am asking factual questions about the length of the process.)

2

Because there are no effective time limits for appeals. A trial that may take up to a year to prosecute takes 15 years or more for review.

Here (pdf) is a white paper from the CA District Attorneys Association on their perspective on CA’s death penalty.

3

Part of the delay is because when a ruling is made, the case is sent to another court and placed at the back of another long line. For many years more people have been given the death sentence than excuted, so the queues keep increasing.

4

I read yesterday that even if his appeals are exhausted with all due haste that the absolute minimum number of years before he’d be up for execution would be 27, ironically the age of Laci at the time of her murder.

5

Another problem (possibly related to the death sentence is automatically repealed in California) is that there are not enough qualified attorneys to handle all the cases.