State Spotlight: Texas Death Penalty Declining in Use — 2024 in Review

According to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s annu­al Year in Review, Texas’ death row con­tin­ued to shrink in 2024, reflect­ing pros­e­cu­tors’ increas­ing reluc­tance to bring new cap­i­tal cas­es and juries’ grow­ing reluc­tance to sen­tence indi­vid­u­als to death. Texas juries imposed just six new death sen­tences in 2024, mark­ing the tenth con­sec­u­tive year of sin­gle-dig­it death sen­tences. Five of those six involved defen­dants of col­or, fol­low­ing anoth­er long-observed trend. In 1999, twen­ty-five years ago, there were 48 new death sen­tences. The sen­tences were geo­graph­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ed — three of the six came from Tarrant County, where all the defen­dants were peo­ple of col­or. Tarrant County has the third-high­est num­ber of peo­ple sen­tenced to death in Texas since 1974, behind Harris and Dallas counties. 

Texas’ con­tin­ued decline in new death sen­tences reflects a broad­er shift in pub­lic atti­tudes and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al prac­tices in the death penal­ty states. Across the U.S., 26 new death sen­tences were imposed in 2024, mark­ing the tenth con­sec­u­tive year that less than 50 death sen­tences have been imposed nation­al­ly. According to the TCADP report, only thir­teen of Texas’ 254 coun­ties have had juries will­ing to vote for a death sen­tence over the past five years, and only juries in Harris and Tarrant coun­ties deliv­ered more than one death sen­tence dur­ing this peri­od: one third of all death sen­tences in the state came from Harris and Tarrant Counties. Texas was among four states (plus Alabama, California, and Florida) respon­si­ble for 76% of new death sen­tences in the United States in 2024. Only ten states– Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas– hand­ed down death sen­tences in 2024. The major­i­ty of U.S. states, 28, have now either abol­ished the death penal­ty or have paused exe­cu­tions by executive action.

As of December 19, 2024, 174 peo­ple remain on Texas’ death row, the small­est pop­u­la­tion since 1985. This is in line with a steady decline in recent years. The death row pop­u­la­tion in Texas dropped to under 200 inmates in 2022 for the first time in almost three decades. According to report­ing by the Texas Tribune, since 2020, for every per­son exe­cut­ed (24) near­ly as many indi­vid­u­als had their sen­tences reduc­tions or con­vic­tions over­turned (22). According to TCADP, nine men also have died on death row before their exe­cu­tion date since 2020.

In 2024, Texas exe­cut­ed five indi­vid­u­als, four of whom were Black or Hispanic, under­scor­ing con­tin­ued con­cerns about the dis­pro­por­tion­ate impact of the death penal­ty on peo­ple of col­or. Harris County, a his­tor­i­cal­ly high-user of the death penal­ty, was respon­si­ble for two exe­cu­tions in 2024. Despite this, the num­ber of exe­cu­tions per year in Texas has remained below 10 since 2019. Harris County has exe­cut­ed 135 indi­vid­u­als since 1997, the most of any coun­ty in the United States; two of those exe­cu­tions took place in 2024.

The report also high­lights sev­er­al high-pro­file cas­es that under­score the fal­li­bil­i­ty of Texas’ death penal­ty sys­tem, includ­ing that of Melissa Lucio. Ms. Lucio, the only Hispanic woman on Texas’ death row, was con­vict­ed of killing her two-year-old daugh­ter Mariah in 2007. New foren­sic find­ings sug­gest her daugh­ter died from an acci­den­tal fall, not inten­tion­al harm or abuse. In October 2024, Judge Arturo Nelson rec­om­mend­ed over­turn­ing her con­vic­tion after hear­ing expert tes­ti­mo­ny about the med­ical evi­dence and the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing her inter­ro­ga­tion and found that Ms. Lucio ​“is actu­al­ly inno­cent; she did not kill her daugh­ter.” Ms. Lucio was inter­ro­gat­ed by police for five hours about Mariah’s death and assert­ed her inno­cence more than 100 times through­out the inter­ro­ga­tion. Ms. Lucio came with­in two days of being exe­cut­ed in April 2022, before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered the tri­al court to con­sid­er mul­ti­ple claims bol­stered with new evi­dence that sup­port, she is inno­cent, and Mariah’s death was the result of an accident.

The high-pro­file case of Robert Roberson, who was sched­uled for exe­cu­tion in October 2024, drew sig­nif­i­cant nation­al atten­tion to inno­cence claims this past year. Mr. Roberson was grant­ed a stay of exe­cu­tion by the Texas Supreme Court after an unprece­dent­ed sub­poe­na from the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence. Ultimately the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the leg­is­la­ture could not issue sub­poe­nas to inter­vene in sched­uled exe­cu­tions. Mr. Roberson was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2003 for the death of his daugh­ter, Nikki, who med­ical experts have since deter­mined died from severe viral and bac­te­r­i­al pneu­mo­nia that doc­tors failed to diag­nose, not from abuse or Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). Mr. Roberson’s con­vic­tion relied large­ly on the now-debunked SBS hypoth­e­sis, which his attor­neys now argue is not sup­port­ed by mod­ern med­ical sci­ence. More than a dozen Texas leg­is­la­tors, includ­ing Republicans and Democrats, sub­mit­ted let­ters urg­ing the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to inter­vene. Faith lead­ers, med­ical pro­fes­sion­als, and advo­cates against junk sci­ence also ral­lied to his defense, empha­siz­ing the urgent need to recon­sid­er con­vic­tions based on out­dat­ed foren­sic meth­ods. Mr. Roberson’s exe­cu­tion has not been resched­uled in the wake of the state Supreme Court deci­sion lift­ing his stay.

Texas cur­rent­ly has four exe­cu­tions sched­uled for 2025, not includ­ing Mr. Roberson.