Decline in ​“Resource-Draining” Death Penalty Trials in Amarillo Texas Mirrors Trends in State, Nation

Forty years after Gregg v. Georgia ushered in the modern era of capital punishment in the United States, the death penalty is in decline across the country and in Texas. The Lone Star State continues to lead the nation in executions—with nearly half of all executions in the U.S. this year—but the Amarillo Globe-News reports that fewer Texas prosecutors are seeking death sentences and fewer juries are imposing them. According to the Globe-News, 26 people have been sentenced to death since 1976 in the Amarillo-area counties of Potter (17 death sentences) and Randall (9 death sentences). As of January 1, 2013, Potter County ranked 11th in the country in executions, but with its last execution in 2008, it has fallen to 16th, and no Amarillo-area prisoner is on death row for an offense committed after 2003. The two Potter County death row prisoners, John Balentine and Travis Runnels, are challenging their death sentences in federal court on the grounds that the lawyers the county appointed for them at trial and in state appellate proceedings provided ineffective representation, inadequately investigating and failing to present mitigating evidence that might have persuaded the jury to spare their lives. A third Amarillo-area prisoner, Brittany Holberg, has been on death row for 18 years, and Randall County criminal district attorney James Farren estimates her case has already cost taxpayers $2 million - $3 million. Farren believes the practical costs of the death penalty are contributing to prosecutors’ decisions not to seek death in new cases. “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,” he said. “It’s simply unfair to the taxpayers to bankrupt the county pursuing that result in a single case.” Farren also says that legislation creating a life without parole sentencing option has changed jurors’ views: “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.” This reflects public opinion polls, which find that a majority of the public prefers life without parole to the death penalty. A recent poll by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research indicates that only 27% of Houstonians think the death penalty is a more appropriate punishment for murder than life without parole. Houston is in Harris County, Texas, which has executed more prisoners than any other county in the nation.

(A. Davis, “Is death knell near for the death penalty in Texas?,” Amarillo Globe-News, July 2, 2016.) See Costs and Public Opinion. For dates of Texas death row offenses, see Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Offenders on Death Row.