Saturday marked 40 years since the Supreme Court's Gregg v. Georgia decision, which brought about the modern death penalty, and Texas continues to lead the nation in executions. But a local death penalty case is coming back for review, and lawyers are starting to signal the death knell of state executions.

In September, oral arguments are scheduled in U.S. District Court in Amarillo to determine if a death row case in Potter County should be reopened.

John Lezell Balentine, 47, has spent 17 years on death row.

He was sentenced to death by lethal injection in Potter County in April 1999. A jury convicted him of capital murder in the 1998 triple homicide of Edward Mark Caylor, 17; Kai Geyer, 15, and Steven Brady Watson, 15, in a home at 510 E. 17th Ave.

Balentine's crime was the first recorded triple homicide in Amarillo history, according to Amarillo Globe-News files.

Prosecutors said that the murders capped a long-running feud between Balentine and Caylor, who was the brother of his ex-girlfriend, Misty Caylor.

Each victim was shot once in the head with a .32-caliber pistol. A fourth person asleep in a back bedroom was not harmed.

Balentine confessed to the murders after his arrest, according to the Texas Attorney General's Office.

At one point in 2009, Balentine was one day away from execution before being granted a reprieve. In 2011, Balentine was within one hour of his execution before Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia stopped it.

The attorney general's office said that the issue revolves around whether the court should reopen the case to consider whether Balentine's lawyer failed to investigate and present evidence that would convince a jury not to sentence him to death.

"This is a hearing that is likely to go back to see whether counsel performed effectively, and that is what will be decided by the court," said Shawn Nolan, the federal public defender appointed to Balentine's case.

Balentine's case has recently been granted assistance from the Federal Community Defender's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Nolan will join Balentine's defense attorney, Lydia Brandt, of the Brandt Law Firm in Farmersville in presenting the case that local attorney Randall Sherrod was ineffective in representing Balentine.

Amarillo area has 4 on death row

Since 1976, Potter County has sentenced 17 people to death, and Randall County has sentenced 9 people to death.

Potter County has the dubious distinction of having executed an offender in the shortest time ever in Texas. Joe Gonzales spent 252 days on death row and was executed in September 1996.

Currently, Balentine is one of two Potter County inmates that are on death row.

The other is Travis Trevino Runnels, 43, who was sentenced to death in 2005 for the 2003 stabbing death of a supervisor at the William P. Clements Unit northwest of Amarillo.

Runnels is pursuing the same line of defense as Balentine, which is through a Supreme Court decision in 2012 called Martinez v. Ryan, that his defense attorney did not effectively present a case to persuade the jury not to impose the death penalty.

There are two inmates from Randall County on death row.

Brittany Marlowe Holberg, 43, who was sentenced to death in 1998 for the 1996 murder and robbery of an 80-year-old man.

Brent Ray Brewer, 46, who was sentenced to death in 1991 for the 1990 robbery and stabbing death of a 66-year-old man.

Brewer, Holberg and Runnels are not currently on the Texas Execution Information Center's watchlist, which shows prisoners whose death row cases the organization feels are close to final review.

Balentine is on that list.

James Farren, the Randall County criminal district attorney, was the prosecutor in Holberg's case and estimates it has cost $2 million to $3 million - and counting. Farren has not changed his mind about the philosophical questions around the death penalty, but sees it slowly dying off.

"I think (the death penalty) should only be sought when it is an egregious event, but the kind of case that would justify the death penalty is rarer, not because my opinion has changed as far as the morality of it, but because of practical issues," Farren said.

"The process has become so onerous, time-draining and resource-draining that the local prosecutors who choose to seek the death penalty in most cases are going to opt not to. It's simply unfair to the taxpayers to bankrupt the county pursuing that result in a single case."

Farren said that laws regarding mitigating evidence, such as the Supreme Court decisions that all four death row inmates from Potter and Randall counties are relying on, has become the primary driving force in reviewing death penalty cases and has sent more cases back to its sentencing phase than any other issue.

Additionally, a changing demographic and changing laws allow even one juror to choose life imprisonment over death.

"It's difficult to find 12 people who all agree that even though this person may die in prison to vote for the death penalty," Farren said.

"The opponents of the death penalty have obtained through the back door what they couldn't obtain through the front door. The practical effect is the eradication of the death penalty."

Is the death penalty on the decline?

There are two executions scheduled for July 14, one in Georgia and one in Texas, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Perry Williams, 35, is set to die from lethal injection for shooting and killing a man who was returning a video.

If both Texas and Georgia go through with these executions, it will have been 64 days since the last one, which was a Missouri man convicted of a triple homicide.

Although the death penalty seems to be declining nationally and statewide, Texas continues to lead the nation.

In 2015, 13 people were executed in Texas. This year, there have been six executions, but seven more are still scheduled.

"Texas is trending downwards, but the difference is that Texas is still executing more people than anybody else in the western hemisphere," said Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

"At the same time that it continues to execute people, the Texas courts are granting more stays of execution and Texas juries are returning more and more life sentences."

In 2015, Texas had 274 people on death row; two died, nine were removed and two were added.

Last year, there were 28 executions across the nation, which was the lowest number in 24 years, and this year has seen 14 so far and eight more are scheduled.

Texas continues to execute more people than the next six nations combined.

"There has been a sea change in attitudes about the death penalty in the United States," Dunham said.

"Although Texas continues to aggressively attempt to execute its prisoners, the death penalty is withering on the other end. The state changed its law, and it now has life without parole as an option."

Dunham said that when Texans are asked if they support or oppose the death penalty, they still continue to support.

However, when given the option of choosing the death penalty or life without parole as a punishment for murder, more support life in prison as an appropriate punishment.