Texas

Timeline

1924 — Texas car­ries out its first exe­cu­tion by elec­tro­cu­tion in the exe­cu­tion of Charles Reynolds in Red River County.

1974 — Texas rein­states the death penal­ty fol­low­ing Furman v. Georgia.

1982 — Texas becomes the first state to car­ry out an exe­cu­tion by lethal injection.

1995 — Mario Marquez, a pris­on­er with an IQ of 65 and the adap­tive skills of a 7‑year-old, is exe­cut­ed. Mr. Marquez’s tri­al coun­sel tes­ti­fies that no evi­dence was pre­sent­ed of his intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty because of a legal flaw in the Texas death penalty statute.

2005 — Texas imple­ments life with­out parole sen­tenc­ing in capital cases.

2011 — A group of for­mer Texas judges, pros­e­cu­tors, and law enforce­ment offi­cers request DNA tests for death row inmate Hank Skinner.

2012 — A Texas coun­ty judge declines to order a psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion to deter­mine whether Marcus Druery is com­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. His attor­neys argue that he is hear­ing voic­es, believes he is being poi­soned, and lacks the under­stand­ing of his legal situation.

2012 — The Texas Attorney General’s Office releas­es par­tial results of DNA test­ing long request­ed by the attor­neys for death row pris­on­er Hank Skinner.

2013 — Death row pris­on­er Andre Thomas is diag­nosed with para­noid schiz­o­phre­nia and audi­to­ry hal­lu­ci­na­tions, dri­ving him to gouge out both of his eyes. Prosecutors still main­tain that he should be executed.

2013 — Governor Rick Perry signs a bill known as the ​“Michael Morton Act” that requires pros­e­cu­tors to open their files to defen­dants and keep records of the evi­dence they dis­close. The act is named after Michael Morton, who was exon­er­at­ed by DNA evi­dence 24 years after he was sen­tenced to life in prison in 1987.

2013 — The Supreme Court rules in Trevino v. Thaler that death row inmates in Texas can raise claims of inef­fec­tive­ness of coun­sel in fed­er­al court if they did not have a chance to raise the claim in state appeals.

2013 — A new law requires DNA test­ing for all bio­log­i­cal evi­dence pri­or to seek­ing the death penalty.

2013 — The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules that a tri­al court ille­gal­ly ordered the forcible med­ica­tion of men­tal­ly ill death row pris­on­er Steven Staley, whose men­tal health began to dete­ri­o­rate when he entered death row in 2006.

2014 — Texas with­holds impor­tant infor­ma­tion revealed in the course of an inde­pen­dent autop­sy of Clayton Lockett, a death row pris­on­er who had under­gone a botched lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tion in the state of Oklahoma.

2014 — District Judge Darlene Byrne rules that the source of Texas’ lethal injec­tion drugs is a mat­ter of pub­lic record and the state should release the infor­ma­tion, includ­ing the sup­pli­ers of drugs obtained for lethal injections.

2016 — The Supreme Court hears argu­ment in Buck v. Davis, a Texas case in which Duane Buck was giv­en the death penal­ty after his own lawyer pre­sent­ed expert tes­ti­mo­ny from a psy­chol­o­gist who assert­ed that he would like­ly com­mit more acts of vio­lence because he is Black.

2017 — Texas sues the U.S. Federal Drug Administration over its con­tin­ued seizure of drugs that Texas intends to use for lethal injec­tion exe­cu­tions. The FDA asserts that these ship­ments vio­late fed­er­al law and that sodi­um thiopen­tal has no legal use in the United States.

2017 — The Supreme Court grants relief to Duane Buck after hear­ing an oral argu­ment in Buck v. Davis.

2017 — The Supreme Court over­turns Texas’ stan­dard for deter­min­ing intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty in cap­i­tal cas­es, assert­ing that the state’s approach cre­ates an ​“unac­cept­able risk that per­sons with intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty will be executed.”

2017 — 1000 vials of the anes­thet­ic sodi­um thiopen­tal that Texas had attempt­ed to ille­gal­ly import into the United States for use in lethal injec­tion executions expires.

2017 — Duane Buck is resen­tenced to life in prison.

2018 — Investigation reveals that Texas has pur­chased exe­cu­tion drugs from a Houston-based com­pound­ing phar­ma­cy with a taint­ed safe­ty record for three-and-a-half-years.

2019 — The U.S. Supreme Court over­turns the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for the sec­ond time and rules that death row pris­on­er Bobby James Moore is intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled and may not be executed.

2021 — The Texas Department of Criminal Justice revis­es exe­cu­tion pro­to­col to per­mit spir­i­tu­al advis­ers in the death chamber.

2021 — The Texas House of Representatives pass a bill that, if approved in the Texas Senate, would end death penal­ty lia­bil­i­ty for felony accom­plices who did not kill and were minor par­tic­i­pants in the con­duct that led to the death of the victim.

2021 — The nation’s longest serv­ing death row pris­on­ers, Raymond Riles, is resen­tenced to life.

2021 — The Supreme Court hears an argu­ment to review death row pris­on­er John Henry Ramirez’s claim that Texas’ refusal to allow his pas­tor to ​“lay hands” on him or pray audi­bly dur­ing his exe­cu­tion vio­lates the fed­er­al Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) and his First Amendment right to the free exer­cise of religion.

2022 — The Supreme Court rules that Texas must allow John Ramirez’s pas­tor to touch and pray over him dur­ing his lethal injection execution.

2023 — A Texas court in Grayson County with­draws Andre Thomas’ exe­cu­tion date to allow more time for his legal team to demon­strate that he is incom­pe­tent to be exe­cut­ed. While on death row, Mr. Thomas gouged out his own eyes and claimed divine direc­tion for his crimes.

2023 — In Reed v. Goertz, the Supreme Court rules that Texas death row pris­on­er Rodney Reed can con­tin­ue his pur­suit of DNA test­ing that had been blocked by a lower court.

Famous Cases

Karla Faye Tucker (November 18, 1959 – February 3, 1998) was con­vict­ed of mur­der in Texas in 1984 and put to death in 1998. She was the first woman to be exe­cut­ed in the United States since 1984, and the first in Texas since 1863.

Cameron Todd Willingham was exe­cut­ed in 2004 for arson in a 1991 house fire that killed his three daugh­ters. The arson the­o­ries used as evi­dence in his case have since be repu­di­at­ed by sci­en­tif­ic advances, and arson experts now believe the fire may have been accidental.

Notable Cases

Anthony Graves spent 16 years in prison before being released on October 27, 2010. He was con­vict­ed based on the tes­ti­mo­ny of Robert Carter, who said Graves was his accom­plice. Two weeks before Carter was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in 2000, he pro­vid­ed a state­ment say­ing he lied about Graves’s involve­ment in the crime. He repeat­ed that state­ment min­utes before his exe­cu­tion. Graves’ con­vic­tion was over­turned in 2006 due to pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, and the spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor assigned to his new tri­al dropped the charges against him, say­ing ​“We found not one piece of cred­i­ble evi­dence that links Anthony Graves to the com­mis­sion of this cap­i­tal murder…He is an innocent man”

Randall Dale Adams was con­vict­ed of killing a police offi­cer. Another sus­pect, David Harris, was heard brag­ging about the mur­der, but said that Adams was the killer. The wit­ness­es in Adams’ case were nev­er cross-exam­ined because they dis­ap­peared after tes­ti­fy­ing. After Adams’ con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were over­turned, pros­e­cu­tors did not seek a new tri­al due to evi­dence of Adams’ inno­cence. This case is the sub­ject of the movie The Thin Blue Line.

Several death row inmates in Texas have been exe­cut­ed despite seri­ous doubts about their guilt, but they have not been offi­cial­ly exon­er­at­ed. (Names link to details of that case.)

• Cameron Todd Willingham
• Gary Graham
• Carlos De Luna
• Ruben Cantu
• Frances Newton

Milestones in Abolition/​Reinstatement

In September 2005, Texas imple­ment­ed life with­out parole sen­tenc­ing in cap­i­tal cas­es. Prior to that, juries had a choice between the death penal­ty and life in prison with a pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole after 40 years.

Texas ​“Firsts”

Texas was the first U.S. state to car­ry out an exe­cu­tion by lethal injec­tion, exe­cut­ing Charles Brooks on December 7, 1982.

Texas is first in the num­ber of exe­cu­tions car­ried out in the United States since 1976.

Other Interesting Facts

One Texas coun­ty (Harris) accounts for 280+ death sen­tences and 127 exe­cu­tions since 1982.

The Texas Governor can­not impose a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions, as this author­i­ty is not allowed in the Texas Constitution. To give the Governor this pow­er would require a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment approved by voters.

Clemency process: The gov­er­nor has clemen­cy author­i­ty on the advice of the Board of Pardons and Paroles and needs a favor­able rec­om­men­da­tion from the Board in order to be able to grant clemen­cy. The gov­er­nor is not oblig­at­ed to fol­low the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Board, how­ev­er. The gov­er­nor also has the pow­er to grant a one-time 30 day reprieve. The gov­er­nor appoints the mem­bers of the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Of Texas’ 254 coun­ties, 136 have nev­er sent a sin­gle offend­er to death row (1976-present). See a map of death sen­tences in Texas by county.

Texas has the Law of Parties, which allows offend­ers to be sen­tenced to death if present while a cap­i­tal crime is being com­mit­ted based on the offend­er being ​“crim­i­nal­ly respon­si­ble for the con­duct of another.”

13 juve­niles were exe­cut­ed in Texas before the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion in Roper v. Simmons. 29 juve­niles await­ing exe­cu­tion were sen­tenced to Life In Prison and removed from death row in response to the decision.

Although the U.S. Supreme Court pro­hib­it­ed the appli­ca­tion of the death penal­ty to per­sons with men­tal retar­da­tion in Atkins v. Virginia (2002), the Texas Legislature still has not enact­ed statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions gov­ern­ing the stan­dards and pro­ce­dures to be fol­lowed in these cases.

Resources

• Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP)
• American Bar Association Texas Death Penalty Assessment Report
• TCADP 2017 Annual Report
• Texas Defender Service
• Department of Criminal Justice
• State Prosecuting Attorney
• Task Force on Indigent Defense
• Victims’ ser­vices
• The StandDown Texas Project
• Death Penalty News & Updates from Professor Rick Halperin of Southern Methodist University
• Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions
• Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
• Texas Criminal Justice Integrity Unit
• Texas Death Row Information from the Dept. of Criminal Justice
• ExecutionWatch, a radio show with live cov­er­age of every Texas execution
• Texas After Violence Project
• List of cur­rent Texas death row pris­on­ers, from the Texas Tribune
• Faces on death row, a project of the Texas Tribune, fea­tur­ing pho­tographs and demo­graph­ic data for Texas’ death row prisoners

Texas Execution Totals Since 1976