The state became the nation's first to hold an execution after the court upheld the injections, and is now attempting its third in just a month. Meanwhile, only two other states - Mississippi and Virginia - have put inmates to death.

That's about to change. Texas, which has led the nation in executions since the 1970s, has 14 scheduled into the fall. And eight other states have set execution dates before the summer's end, according to Capital Defense Weekly, a Web site for death penalty lawyers.

Why was Georgia so quick out of the box?

Experts say Georgia has a shorter waiting period - a maximum of just 29 days - than some other states to move forward with an execution once a death warrant is signed. Once the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in April that the three-drug lethal injection method used by most states was constitutional, Georgia was able to move with almost no delay.

And there were already several cases in the pipeline when the high court took up the lethal injection challenge. The backlog was created in part because Georgia held only one execution between 2006 and 2007.

William Earl Lynd's execution on May 6th was the first in the nation after the April Supreme Court ruling. He was convicted of killing his live-in girlfriend in Berrien County two decades ago.

Samuel David Crowe was scheduled to die on May 22nd but had his sentence commuted to life in prison without parole just hours before he was to be put to death.

The state is set to move forward with its third execution on Wednesday for Curtis Osborne, for killing a Spalding County couple in 1990.

Even if more executions are scheduled in Georgia this year it's unlikely the state will surpass the record of 23 conducted in 1935, when the Georgia's death row was using the electric chair.

Four executions were performed in both 2001 and 2002. That's the highest number since the state adopted lethal injection as its method of execution in October 2001.