Capital punishment in Texas


is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Texas, known as the capital punishment capital, for murder, and participation in a felony resulting in death if committed by an individual who is at least 18 years old.
In 1982, the state became the first jurisdiction in the world to carry out an execution by lethal injection, when it executed Charles Brooks Jr. It was the first execution in the state since 1964.
Texas, which is the second most populous state in the United States, has executed 597 people since the U.S. capital punishment resumption in 1976 to January 28, 2026 —more than a third of the national total. Even per capita, Texas has the nation's second-highest execution rate, behind only neighboring Oklahoma.

History

The first execution in Texas occurred in 1819, with the execution of a white male, George Brown, for piracy. In 1840, a free black male, Henry Forbes, was executed for burglary and jail-breaking. Prior to Texas statehood in 1846, eight executions—all by hanging—were carried out.
Upon statehood, hanging was the method used for almost all executions until 1924. Hangings were administered by the county where the trial took place. The last hanging in the state was that of Nathan Lee, a man convicted of murder and executed in Angleton, Brazoria County, Texas on August 31, 1923. The only other method used at the time was execution by firing squad, which was used for three Confederate deserters during the American Civil War, as well as a man convicted of attempted rape in 1863. In 1853, the first execution in Houston took place in public at Founder's Cemetery in the Fourth Ward; initially, the cemetery was the execution site, but post-1868 executions took place in the jail facilities.
In 1923, Texas changed its execution laws, which required that executions be carried out on the electric chair, and that they take place at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. From 1928 until 1965, this was also home to the state's male death row. The first executions on the electric chair were on February 8, 1924, when Charles Reynolds, Ewell Morris, Harris Washington, Haden Cochran, and Melvin Johnson had their death sentences carried out. The five executions were the most carried out on a single day in the state. The state would conduct multiple executions on a single day on several other occasions, the last being on August 9, 2000. Since then, the state has not executed more than one person on a single day, although there are no laws prohibiting it. A total of 361 people were electrocuted in Texas, with the last being Joseph Johnson on July 30, 1964.
The United States Supreme Court decision in Furman v. Georgia, which declared Georgia's "unitary trial" procedure to be unconstitutional, on the grounds that it was a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, essentially negated all death penalty sentences nationwide.
As result of the Furman decision, the 52 Texas death-row inmates at the time had all of their sentences reduced to life imprisonment. Among them was Kenneth McDuff, who was originally condemned for the murder of three teenagers in 1966. He was paroled in 1989, but subsequently executed in 1998 for a murder he committed while on parole, and is suspected to have been responsible for many other killings.
Furman led to a 1973 revision of the laws, primarily by introducing the bifurcated trial process, and narrowly limited the legal definition of capital murder. The first person sentenced to death under the new Texas statute was John Devries on February 15, 1974; Devries hanged himself in his cell on July 1, 1974, before he could be executed.
In 1976, the Supreme Court decision in Jurek v. Texas once again allowed for the death penalty to be imposed. However, the first execution in Texas after this decision would not take place until December 7, 1982, with that of Charles Brooks, Jr. Brooks was also the first person to be judicially executed by lethal injection in the world.
In the post-Gregg era, Texas has executed 597 people, making it the state with the highest number of executions. Among the top five states with the highest number of executions, Texas surpasses the combined total of the next four states. There are a variety of proposed legal and cultural explanations as to why Texas has more executions than any other state. One possible reason is due to the federal appellate structure—federal appeals from Texas are made to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Michael Sharlot, dean of the University of Texas at Austin Law School, found the Fifth Circuit to be a “much more conservative circuit” than the Ninth Circuit, to which federal appeals from California are made. According to him, the Fifth is “more deferential to the popular will” that is strongly pro-death penalty, and creates few legal obstacles to execution within its jurisdiction. As of 2004, however, Texas may have a lower rate of death sentencing than other states, according to a study by Cornell University.
Texas has executed nine women in its history, the most recent being Lisa Ann Coleman on September 17, 2014.
In 2005, the state of Texas passed a law allowing life imprisonment without parole as an option for capital cases. Maurice Chammah, author of Let the Lord Sort Them: The Rise and Fall of the Death Penalty, stated that governments of smaller counties supported the move, as death penalty cases had increasing costs due to lengthy appeals processes. By 2021, the usage of the death penalty in Texas courts was on the decline. Rose Calahan of Texas Monthly stated that by that year, the death penalty became less of a wedge issue in politics. There were three executions in 2020, the smallest number of executions per year since 1996, which also had 3. In 2020, two persons were sentenced to death, making it the post-1974 year with the lowest number of people sentenced to death.
During the Governorship of Rick Perry Texas saw a record of 279 executions.

Capital crimes

Under Texas statutes, a murder is capital if the offender:
  1. Murders a peace officer or fireman who is acting in the lawful discharge of an official duty, and who the person knows is a peace officer or fireman.
  2. Intentionally commits the murder in the course of committing or attempting to commit aggravated kidnapping, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, arson, obstruction or retaliation, or terroristic threat.
  3. Commits the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration, or employs another to commit the murder for remuneration or the promise of remuneration.
  4. Commits the murder while escaping or attempting to escape from a penal institution.
  5. Commits the murder, while incarcerated, of a person who is employed in the operation of the penal institution.
  6. Commits the murder, while incarcerated, with the intent to establish, maintain, or participate in a combination or in the profits of a combination, with a "combination" defined as "five or more persons who collaborate in carrying on criminal activities."
  7. Commits the murder while incarcerated for murder; or while serving a sentence of life imprisonment or a term of 99 years for aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, or aggravated robbery.
  8. Murders more than one person during the same criminal transaction or during different criminal transactions, but the murders are committed pursuant to the same scheme or course of conduct.
  9. Murders an individual under 15 years of age.
  10. Murders another person in retaliation for or on account of the service or status of the other person as a judge or justice of the supreme court, the court of criminal appeals, a court of appeals, a district court, a criminal district court, a constitutional county court, a statutory county court, a justice court, or a municipal court.
Texas statute books still provide the death penalty for aggravated sexual assault committed by an offender previously convicted of the same against a child under 14.
In 1943, Texas established a minimum age of 17 for a defendant to be sentenced to death. The last people to be executed for a crime committed while under the age of 17 in Texas were brothers Roscoe and Henderson Young, ages 17 and 15, who were executed on May 6, 1938, for the rape and robbery of a couple. At the time of the crime, Roscoe was 16 and Henderson was 15. In 2005, the US Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons has ruled capital punishment to be unconstitutional for all juvenile offenders, raising the minimum execution age to 18.
In 2011, the highest age of a child murder victim, which can subject the murderer to the death penalty, was raised from six to ten by the Texas legislature. Under Lauren's Law, this age was raised to 15; however, the death penalty cannot be sought if the basis of the capital murder charge was the death of an individual older than 10 but younger than 15.

Distribution by county

courts, in the post-Furman v. Georgia death penalty period, were more likely to hand down death sentences compared to other courts, because the county had the financial resources to pursue capital punishment. Other counties, fearful of losing funds, have opted for life sentences.

Legal procedure

The prosecution may choose not to seek the death penalty. This can be for various reasons, such as the prosecution believing that they could not show the defendant worthy of death, or the family of the victim requesting that the death penalty not be imposed. Additionally, the death penalty cannot be sought at all on a capital murder charge if the aggravating factor was a single victim that was older than 10 but younger than 15.

Trial phase

When the prosecution seeks the death penalty, the sentence is decided by the jury. A death sentence must be unanimous, while a life sentence requires only 10 votes.
In case of a hung jury during the penalty phase of the trial, a life sentence is issued—even if only a single juror opposed death.
Jurors in the sentencing phase are first asked to determine whether the defendant represents a “future danger to society.” Only after ruling that “there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society,” will the jury choose the sentence itself, by deciding whether there is “sufficient mitigating circumstance or circumstances to warrant that a sentence of life imprisonment without parole rather than a death sentence be imposed” or not.