Constitutional Law

Report Reveals Decline in Texas Death Sentences

A new report highlighted by the Sentencing Law and Policy Blog finds that the use of the death penalty is declining in Texas. The report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty states that in 2008 “eight men and one woman were newly sentenced to death ….” According to the report those numbers mark “the lowest number of new death sentences in Texas since official reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976 and reflects similar trends nationwide. The Sentencing Law and Policy Blog states that, “Perhaps the surest sign that the death penalty is dying a slow death in the United States comes from the state most responsible for keeping the death penalty so lively in recent decades.”

In October, Scott Phillips, an associate professor at the University of Denver, examined racial disparities in the application of the death penalty in Texas’s Harris County. In an ACS Issue Brief, Phillips said his research revealed that the death penalty was more likely to be imposed against black defendants than white defendants, and that the death sentence was more likely to be sought when the victim was white.

In his ACS brief, Phillips also noted that, “Though the entire state of Texas has earned a reputation for execution, Harris County – home to Houston and surrounding areas – is the capital of capital punishment. Harris County has executed 104 offenders in the modern era (defined as the time from the Supreme Court’s reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976 to present).” The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s report noted that in 2008 Harris County did not sentence anyone to death. “While Harris County still accounts for a third of all Texas inmates awaiting execution (116 of 344), it only has sentenced seven people to death in the last four years.”

Full post as published by ACS Blog on December 09, 2008 (boomark / email).