Texas Report Highlights Decline of New Death Sentences and Executions

For decades, Texas per­formed exe­cu­tions at the high­est rate in the coun­try. It has car­ried out the most exe­cu­tions in the mod­ern era, with near­ly five times the num­ber as the next high­est state. However, that trend has changed in recent years, as both the num­ber of new death sen­tences and exe­cu­tions has sig­nif­i­cant­ly declined. The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s (TCADP) 2025 Annual Report exam­ines the dwin­dling use of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment and the fac­tors that impact­ed this significant shift. 

Use of the death penal­ty peaked in Texas in 1999, with 48 new death sen­tences, and 2000, with 40 exe­cu­tions. TCADP notes that 72% of Texas’ exe­cu­tions took place between 1996 and 2015; the last decade accounts for 11%. New death sen­tences have seen a sim­i­lar decline, with few­er than ten peo­ple sen­tenced to death in each of the last 11 years. The Report details that in 2025, Texas judges set sev­en exe­cu­tion dates, the fewest of any year in the last three decades. Of those sev­en, five were exe­cut­ed, and the remain­ing two received stays from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (TCCA).

One strik­ing fea­ture of the Texas cap­i­tal sys­tem is that a few coun­ties are respon­si­ble for the major­i­ty of exe­cu­tions and death sen­tences in the state. As the Report states, ​“In Texas, whether a per­son receives a death sen­tence con­tin­ues to be dri­ven not by the under­ly­ing crime, but by geog­ra­phy.” Racial dis­par­i­ties are evi­dent in these high-use coun­ties. For exam­ple, 23 of the last 24 defen­dants sen­tenced to death in Harris County are peo­ple of col­or. In Tarrant County, eight of the nine men con­demned since 2012 are also peo­ple of color. 

Recent trends indi­cate that few­er pros­e­cu­tors are pur­su­ing death sen­tences and few­er juries are impos­ing them for a myr­i­ad of rea­sons, includ­ing con­cerns about costs and the effect of cap­i­tal tri­als and appeals on vic­tims’ fam­i­lies. TCADP’s report dis­cussed two notable cap­i­tal cas­es in 2025 where these issues were cit­ed. The first is Patrick Crusius, an indi­vid­ual with seri­ous men­tal ill­ness who was already serv­ing 90 life sen­tences for a mass shoot­ing. This past year, the El Paso County District Attorney dis­missed cap­i­tal charges against Mr. Crusius, as the judi­cial process had already cost $6 mil­lion in tax­pay­er dol­lars over six years. At the sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, mul­ti­ple vic­tims’ fam­i­ly mem­bers for­gave Mr. Crusius, and two fam­i­ly mem­bers even hugged him with the judge’s con­sent. The sec­ond notable exam­ple was the tri­al of Francisco Oropeza. AsTCADP wrote, ​“The District Attorney con­sult­ed with the vic­tim’ fam­i­lies and reached a con­sen­sus that this pun­ish­ment would spare the trau­ma and risk of a tri­al while ensur­ing account­abil­i­ty for Oropeza [who would plead guilty].” 

Concerns about the ethics and costs of using the death penal­ty are also increas­ing­ly men­tioned by state actors and dur­ing judi­cial pro­ceed­ings. During Texas’ past leg­isla­tive ses­sion, leg­is­la­tors filed death penal­ty abo­li­tion bills in both the House and State Senate, but none of them advanced. However, a bill to expand the scope of the death penal­ty also failed. 

Beyond cost and ethics, court sys­tems are weigh­ing the stand­ing of cas­es involv­ing shield­ed evi­dence and evolv­ing sci­ence con­cerns being brought to light. In 2025, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed the exe­cu­tion dates of two indi­vid­u­als, David Wood and Robert Roberson, grant­i­ng them both new tri­als. Additionally, on June 26, 2025, the Supreme Court vot­ed in favor to allow Ruben Gutierrez to con­tin­ue his law­suit chal­leng­ing Texas’ post-con­vic­tion DNA statute, which has restrict­ed Mr. Guiterrez from DNA test­ing for over a decade. 

The Report con­cludes by reit­er­at­ing the fac­tors that are influ­enc­ing Texans to aban­don ​“the death penal­ty as a path of jus­tice… It is incum­bent of pol­i­cy­mak­ers at both the State and coun­ty lev­el to exam­ine the col­lec­tive costs of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment. Texans should embrace a vision of jus­tice that leaves the death penal­ty behind and real­lo­cates lim­it­ed pub­lic resources to mea­sures proven to enhance public safety.”