The state is on track to execute more death row inmates than in any year since 1949, and capital punishment foes say the state is picking up the pace for fear lawmakers may soon impose a moratorium.

State officials call it a mere coincidence.

Death penalty opponents are pushing for a 2-year moratorium that would give time to examine whether capital punishment is fairly administered, a proposal House lawmakers plan to consider this spring.

The Senate approved a moratorium in April.

"The executions have continued even while the North Carolina Senate endorsed a 2-year moratorium," said coalition spokeswoman Cas Shearin. "That just doesn't seem like very good public policy."

4 inmates have been executed so far this year. 2 are scheduled to die in November and 1 in December.

If the year ends with seven executions, it will be the largest number of people put to death in North Carolina since capital punishment resumed in 1977, and the most since 10 were executed in 1949.

Stephen Dear, a moratorium promoter with People of Faith Against the Death Penalty, said the increase in executions shows "the powers that be are afraid of the moratorium movement."

District Attorney Jeff Hunt, who is president of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, dismissed that idea.

"I think it's almost coincidental in terms of the big picture of the death penalty and North Carolina. Every execution is significant, but it's coincidental," Hunt said.

He said prosecutors and lawyers in the state Attorney General's Office have no control over the rate of executions.

State officials say this year's peak is due to a variety of factors, and that 4 more executions could be scheduled soon.

In a poll conducted last month for The News & Observer of Raleigh, more than 1/2 of voters polled disapproved of the proposed moratorium. 40 % agreed with it and 7 & were unsure.

Shearin said the ban is a good idea for many reasons.