A new report on the death penal­ty in Texas found that death sen­tences have declined by more than 75% since 2002, and more than half of all new death sen­tences were imposed in the Dallas-Fort Worth area this year, while no new death sen­tences were imposed in Harris County (Houston) for the third time in five years. The report, ​“Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2012: The Year in Review” by the Texas Coalition to Abolish Death Penalty, stat­ed there were 9 new death sen­tences in 2012, near the record low since the death penal­ty was rein­stat­ed in 1976. According to TCADP, racial pat­terns con­tin­ue to per­sist in the use of the death penal­ty: ​“Seven of the new death row inmates in 2012 are African-American, one is Hispanic, and one is a white female. Over the last five years, near­ly 75% of death sen­tences in Texas have been imposed on peo­ple of col­or – 46% African-American and 28% Hispanic.” Kathryn Kase, Executive Director of the Texas Defender Service, remarked, ​“Although Texas is using the death penal­ty less, the state still uses it dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly on peo­ple of col­or. This is a recur­ring prob­lem and Texas’ fail­ure to fix it demon­strates how bro­ken its cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment system is.”

(TCADP, ​“Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2012: The Year in Review,” and TCADP’s Press Release, Dec. 12, 2012). See DPIC’s 2012 Year End Report on nation­al death penal­ty devel­op­ments; see also Sentencing.

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