Entries tagged with “Harris County”
Facts & Research
Sentencing Data
,Executions Overview
,Dec 05, 2017
No Executions in the “Capital of Capital Punishment” for First Time in 30 Years
Harris County (Houston), Texas, has executed 126 prisoners since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’s capital punishment statute in 1976, more than any other county in the United States and, apart from the rest of Texas, more than any state. But in 2017, no one will be sentenced to death in Harris County and, for the first time since 1985, no one sentenced to death in the county will be…
Policy Issues
Arbitrariness
,Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Representation
,Oct 20, 2016
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…
Facts & Research
Public Opinion
,May 26, 2020
Poll Finds Record-Low Support for Death Penalty Among Houstonians
Just 20% of Houstonians — a record low — now support the death penalty over life-sentencing alternatives, a new Rice University survey has found. The 2020 Houston Area Survey by the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, released on May 4, 2020, found that death-penalty support has declined by more than half since the turn of the 21st century in the city of 2.3 million…
Executions
Upcoming Executions
,Executions Overview
,Sep 27, 2021
Texas Executes Rick Rhoades, the First Execution from Harris County in Two Years
In a case that reflects the waning use of capital punishment, even in the some of the counties that have carried out the most executions in modern times, Rick Rhoades on September 28, 2021 became the first person convicted in Harris County (Houston), Texas to be executed in two…
Policy Issues
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,May 28, 2020
Texas Federal Judge Overturns Death-Row Prisoner’s Conviction, Finding Now-Celebrity TV Host Hid Evidence of Misconduct
A federal district court judge has overturned the conviction and death sentence of Texas death-row prisoner Ronald Prible, finding that celebrity “true crime” host Kelly Siegler (pictured) had engaged in extensive misconduct as a Harris County homicide prosecutor in Prible’s capital trial in 2002. U.S. District Judge Keith Ellison granted relief on six separate claims that Siegler hid exculpatory evidence from the defense, provided undisclosed favors to…