Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty Releases Report on
Death Penalty Developments in 2008

​“Average” Number of Executions Carried Out in Record Time as New Death
Sentences Reach Lowest Level in Texas in 30 Years

(Austin, Texas) — Today the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty
(TCADP) released its annu­al report on death penal­ty devel­op­ments statewide, in
advance of the December 7 anniver­sary of the resump­tion of exe­cu­tions in Texas
in 1982. According to the report, Texas juries new­ly con­demned nine
indi­vid­u­als (eight men and one woman) to death in 2008, the low­est num­ber of
new death sen­tences since offi­cial rein­state­ment of the death penal­ty in 1976.
Juries also resen­tenced two peo­ple to death.

A de fac­to mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions nation­wide exist­ed from September 26, 2007
until April 16, 2008 while the U.S. Supreme Court con­sid­ered the
con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of the lethal injec­tion pro­to­col used by the major­i­ty of
death penal­ty states. On April 16, the Court ruled in Baze v. Rees that the
cur­rent pro­to­col used by Kentucky (and oth­er states, includ­ing Texas) does not
con­sti­tute cru­el and unusu­al pun­ish­ment. The deci­sion lift­ed all stays in
effect at the time and paved the way for the resump­tion of exe­cu­tions. Texas’
first exe­cu­tion of the year took place on June 11, 2008, when Karl Chamberlain
was put to death. The State went on to exe­cute 17 more peo­ple in the lat­ter
half of 2008, account­ing for 50% of all exe­cu­tions in the United States this
year. Seven of those exe­cut­ed had been con­vict­ed in Dallas County.

​“2008 can only be char­ac­ter­ized as yet anoth­er roller­coast­er year for the
death penal­ty in Texas,” said TCADP Executive Director Kristin Houlé. ​“The
state car­ried out a ​‘typ­i­cal’ num­ber of exe­cu­tions in a record amount of time
– aver­ag­ing near­ly one per week over a five-month peri­od. Yet offi­cials’ zeal
for exe­cu­tions was not matched by pub­lic desire for new death sen­tences, as
evi­denced by the con­tin­ued steep decline in the num­ber of new inmates arriv­ing
on death row.”

This past year also was notable for the exe­cu­tions that did not occur. Six
inmates with exe­cu­tion dates in 2008 received last-minute stays, due to
con­cerns about pos­si­ble inno­cence, the fair­ness of their tri­al, or issues
relat­ed to men­tal retar­da­tion or men­tal ill­ness. The case of Charles Hood, in
par­tic­u­lar, chal­lenged the integri­ty of the Texas judi­cial sys­tem, after sol­id
evi­dence con­firmed that the judge who presided over his orig­i­nal tri­al was
roman­ti­cal­ly linked to the pros­e­cu­tor who sought his death sen­tence. Hood
received a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on September 9 on an
issue unre­lat­ed to the improp­er rela­tion­ship; his attor­neys con­tin­ue to seek a
new tri­al.

Other high­lights of TCADP’s report, Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2008,
include the fol­low­ing:

* In 2008, the State of Texas car­ried out 18 exe­cu­tions in 5 months.
Only eight oth­er states car­ried out exe­cu­tions this year; none exe­cut­ed more
than four peo­ple. Texas has exe­cut­ed 423 peo­ple since 1982. Currently there
are 354 inmates on death row in Texas – 344 men and 10 women.

* Michael Blair became the 9th inmate exon­er­at­ed from death row in Texas
after DNA test­ing failed to con­nect him to the crime for which he was
con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death.

* Seven oth­er inmates were removed per­ma­nent­ly from death row in 2008;
their sen­tences were com­mut­ed to life in prison. This includes Thomas
Miller-El, Johnny Paul Penry, and LaRoyce Smith, whose con­vic­tions and/​or
death sen­tences had been over­turned at var­i­ous junc­tures by the U.S. Supreme
Court.

* Jurors reject­ed the death penal­ty in at least four cap­i­tal mur­der
tri­als in 2008, opt­ing instead for the pun­ish­ment of life in prison with­out
the pos­si­bil­i­ty of parole.

* Harris County, which accounts for more exe­cu­tions than any state in
the coun­try (besides Texas), did not send a sin­gle per­son to death row in
2008.

* Texas defied fed­er­al offi­cials and the International Court of Justice
when it exe­cut­ed Mexican nation­al Jose Medellin on August 5, 2008, despite the
fact that he had been denied the right to con­tact his con­sular office upon his
arrest in 1993 as afford­ed by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

* The U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion in Kennedy v. Louisiana on June 25,
2008 inval­i­dat­ed the death penal­ty pro­vi­sion of ​“Jessica’s Law,” which the
Texas Legislature passed in 2007. The Justices ruled 5 – 4 that the death
penal­ty is uncon­sti­tu­tion­al as a pun­ish­ment for the crime of rap­ing a child
and they effec­tive­ly barred its impo­si­tion for any crime that does not take
the life of the vic­tim.

Texas already has sched­uled 11 exe­cu­tions for the first 3 months of 2009.
​“Despite con­tin­ued con­cerns about the flaws and fail­ures of the Texas death
penal­ty sys­tem – and grow­ing pub­lic aware­ness of its fal­li­bil­i­ty – the
​’con­vey­or belt to death’ con­tin­ues to oper­ate on high gear,” said Houlé.
​“TCADP urges all elect­ed offi­cials to take a hard look at this cost­ly, bro­ken
gov­ern­ment sys­tem – a sys­tem that pro­duces wrong­ful con­vic­tions and most
like­ly wrong­ful exe­cu­tions – and to sup­port alter­na­tives that pro­tect soci­ety
and pun­ish the tru­ly guilty.”

TCADP is a statewide, grass­roots orga­ni­za­tion based in Austin, Texas. Texas
Death Penalty Developments in 2008: The Year in Review is avail­able online at

https://​tcadp​.org/​w​p​-​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​u​p​l​o​a​d​s​/​2​0​1​0​/​0​6​/​2​0​0​8​a​n​n​u​a​l​r​e​p​o​r​t.pdf