A recent op-ed by Jordan Steiker, endowed professor of law and Director of the Capital Punishment Center at the University of Texas, highlighted the declining use of the death penalty in that state. AlthoughTexas leads the nation in executions, death sentences and executions per year have dropped sharply since the 1990s. Prof. Steiker wrote, “In 1999, Texas juries returned an astounding 48 death sentences. Since 2008, however, Texas has annually sent fewer than 10 defendants to death row. Executions in Texas have declined as well, from a high of 40 in 2000 to fewer than 20 since 2010.” While describing the “perfect storm” of conditions that led to Texas’s high use of capital punishment in the past, the op-ed also noted changes that have led to less death-penalty use, such as the creation of a statewide defender’s office to represent death-sentenced inmates in state post-conviction and the broader disclosure of evidence to the accused. Prosecutors have increasingly accepted plea agreements to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, saving taxpayer dollars that would have been spent on expensive capital trials and appeals.

The op-ed pointed out that Texas’s death penalty continues to struggle with issues such as racial discrimination, inadequate safeguards against wrongful death sentences, and geographical arbitrariness, noting that “fewer than half of Texas’ 254 counties have sent offenders to death row.”

(J. Steiker, “In Texas, perfect storm for executions,” San Antonio Express-News, op-ed, June 20, 2014). See Sentencing and Arbitrariness.

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