OUTLIER COUNTIES: Former Death Penalty Capital Shows Signs of Change

Harris County, Texas, the coun­ty that leads the nation in exe­cu­tions, has served as a bell­wether in recent years of the nation­wide decline of the death penal­ty. Although the 10 new death sen­tences imposed in Harris County since 2010 are more than were imposed in 99.5% of U.S. coun­ties, they are sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er than the 53 new death sen­tences that were hand­ed down in Harris in 1998 – 2003 and the 16 from 2004 – 2009. The 2016 Kinder Institute sur­vey of Houston res­i­dents showed that just 27% pre­fer the death penal­ty over life sen­tences for those con­vict­ed of first-degree murder.

Though the num­ber of death sen­tences has dropped, sys­temic prob­lems of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, inad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion, and racial bias per­sist. Kelly Siegler, a pros­e­cu­tor who obtained 19 death sen­tences, was found by a Texas court to have com­mit­ted 36 instances of mis­con­duct in a sin­gle mur­der case. In anoth­er case, she brought the vic­tim’s blood­stained bed into the court­room and reen­act­ed the mur­der using one of the knives from the crime scene. 

Harris County became nation­al­ly known in the 1990s for bad defense lawyer­ing when a cap­i­tal defense attor­ney slept through his clien­t’s tri­al. A judge told the defen­dant, ​“the Constitution does not say that the lawyer has to be awake.” 

Today, Harris County defen­dants still receive inef­fec­tive coun­sel because of a pay sys­tem that dis­cour­ages defense lawyers from seek­ing plea bar­gains or hir­ing expert wit­ness­es. Every new death sen­tence imposed in Harris County since November 2004 (not includ­ing resen­tences) has been imposed upon a Black or Latino defen­dant. Former Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, who over­saw 40 death sen­tences between 2001 and 2008, resigned after a civ­il suit uncov­ered racist emails he sent using his offi­cial email account. 

The U.S. Supreme Court is cur­rent­ly decid­ing Buck v. Davis, a Harris County case in which a Black defen­dant was sen­tenced to death after his defense attor­ney intro­duced racial­ly-biased tes­ti­mo­ny dur­ing sen­tenc­ing. Three Harris County defen­dants have been exon­er­at­ed from death row, most recent­ly Alfred Brown (pic­tured) in 2015. Prosecutors with­held evi­dence that cor­rob­o­rat­ed Brown’s ali­bi, Brown’s girl­friend was threat­ened and even­tu­al­ly impris­oned until she agreed to tes­ti­fy against him, and offi­cials refused requests to test DNA that may impli­cate another suspect.