Hispanic Heritage Month: Travis County, Texas District Attorney José Garza

In hon­or of Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15-Oct. 15), DPI is post­ing a week­ly fea­ture on Hispanic or Latino/​a peo­ple who have had a sig­nif­i­cant impact on the death penal­ty in the U.S. This post high­lights José Garza, District Attorney of Travis County, Texas.

José Garza, a for­mer pub­lic defend­er, took office as Travis County District Attorney in 2021, after run­ning on a plat­form of crim­i­nal jus­tice reform, includ­ing a pledge not to seek the death penal­ty. On his cam­paign web­site in 2020, he stat­ed that ​“the Death Penalty is moral­ly and eth­i­cal­ly wrong, does not serve as a deter­rent, has proven to be applied arbi­trar­i­ly at best, and comes at tremen­dous financial costs.” 

Before his time in office, Mr. Garza expe­ri­enced many faults with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem first­hand. While work­ing as a pub­lic defend­er for cas­es on the Texas-Mexico bor­der, Mr. Garza rec­og­nized the unequal treat­ment of dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. He specif­i­cal­ly not­ed that peo­ple of col­or, work­ing peo­ple, and immi­grants faced the harsh­est pun­ish­ments. Because of his expe­ri­ence, Mr. Garza has made it his mis­sion to help these com­mu­ni­ties in Texas. ​“They need a crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem that lifts up work­ing-class com­mu­ni­ties of col­or, not one that locks them up,” Mr. Garza told the National Partnership for Pretrial Justice. 

Since his cam­paign, Mr. Garza has vowed to nev­er seek the death penal­ty in Travis County. In 2020, Mr. Garza’s cam­paign post­ed on Facebook say­ing, ​“it is time to end the machin­ery of death in Travis County.” Mr. Garza has inter­vened in favor of the defen­dant in the U.S. Supreme Court case Escobar v. Texas. In this case, Areli Escobar was sen­tenced to death for the rape and mur­der of a woman in his apart­ment com­plex. No eye­wit­ness­es linked him to the crime, and the prosecution’s case relied heav­i­ly on the Austin crime lab’s foren­sic test­ing of Mr. Escobar’s clothes and items found at the crime scene. After the Austin Police Department crime lab was shut down in 2016 for wide­spread prob­lems with evi­dence han­dling and test­ing, Mr. Escobar sought relief in Texas courts​.Mr. Garza voiced his sup­port for the defendant’s call for relief and shared his view on the impor­tance of fair tri­als. ​“We believe it’s real­ly impor­tant for some­one accused of a crime to have a jury that has access to com­plete and accu­rate facts,” Mr. Garza said. 

Following the rein­sti­tu­tion of the death penal­ty in Texas in the 1970s, Travis County has sen­tenced 22 peo­ple to death and exe­cut­ed 8 peo­ple. Mr. Garza has made an effort to decrease this num­ber in Travis County. According to the Texarkana Gazette, Mr. Garza’s poli­cies include review­ing exist­ing cap­i­tal cas­es for signs of wrong­ful con­vic­tion or mis­con­duct. His plat­form states that he will review cas­es ​“to ensure that there are no foren­sic, evi­den­tiary, or legal issues that should cause the con­vic­tion to be called into ques­tion.” Although Texas cur­rent­ly leads the nation in cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, Mr. Garza is attempt­ing to shift this nar­ra­tive in Travis County.