Recent Jury Trials in Dallas Highlight Death Penalty Decline Across Texas

From 2007 to 2013, Dallas sen­tenced twelve cap­i­tal­ly charged defen­dants to death — more than any oth­er coun­ty in Texas—and Dallas ranks sec­ond nation­al­ly, behind only Harris County (Houston), in the num­ber it has exe­cut­ed since 1972. But the coun­ty has not imposed any new death sen­tences since then, and the recent life sen­tences in the cap­i­tal tri­als of Justin Smith and Erbie Bowser high­light a statewide trend away from the death penalty. 

Smith was charged with killing three and injur­ing two oth­ers in a drug-house rob­bery; Bowser, with killing four women and injur­ing four chil­dren in what has been described as ​“a two-city ram­page.” After hear­ing evi­dence of Bowser’s prison adjust­ment after being med­icat­ed for men­tal ill­ness, his jury split on whether he posed a future threat to soci­ety and he was sen­tenced to life with­out parole. When Smith’s jury told the court it was split on whether he had proven mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances, he agreed to accept a plea deal to life. Such out­comes are becom­ing more com­mon in Texas. About half (7 of 15) of the death penal­ty tri­als in the state since 2015 have result­ed in life sentences. 

The fact that pros­e­cu­tors have tak­en death penal­ty cas­es to tri­al just 15 times in two-and-a-half years is itself a sig­nif­i­cant change. A com­bi­na­tion of fac­tors, includ­ing declin­ing pub­lic sup­port for cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, the avail­abil­i­ty of a life-with­out-parole sen­tenc­ing option, the high cost of death penal­ty tri­als, and con­cerns about inno­cence, have led pros­e­cu­tors to seek death sen­tences less often. 

Former Montague County District Attorney Tim Cole said his views on the issue have shift­ed: ​“It is time for the death penal­ty to go away. My pri­ma­ry con­cern with it is we don’t seem to get it per­fect­ly.… The exe­cu­tion of one inno­cent per­son isn’t worth it to me.” He said he believes the option of life with­out parole has also con­tributed to the declin­ing num­ber of death sen­tences by giv­ing pros­e­cu­tors and jurors a severe alter­na­tive pun­ish­ment. Paul Johnson, an attor­ney for Justin Smith, agreed: “[Jurors] know that if they don’t give them death, they’re going to die in prison any­way. Why put some­one to death when you can give them life without parole?” 

In an edi­to­r­i­al, The Dallas Morning News wrote, “[e]vidence con­tin­ues to mount that this sys­tem is too ripe for mis­takes.” The news­pa­per laud­ed the state’s progress in reduc­ing death sen­tences, and point­ed to recent leg­is­la­tion as fur­ther evi­dence of cap­i­tal pun­ish­men­t’s decline. A death penal­ty repeal bill was giv­en pub­lic hear­ings this ses­sion, and leg­is­la­tors have passed and sent to the gov­er­nor reforms aimed at reduc­ing wrong­ful con­vic­tions. Under the new bill, ​“Police would be required to record inter­ro­ga­tions, and pros­e­cu­tors would have to pro­vide jurors more infor­ma­tion about tes­ti­mo­ny from so-called prison snitch­es. Stricter pro­to­cols also would be in place for eye­wit­ness iden­ti­fi­ca­tion.” (Click image to enlarge.)