Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Criminal Law Blogs -> StandDown Texas Project

Criminal Law

: StandDown Texas Project

Fewer Texas Inmates Sentenced to Death

By Steve Hall

That's the title of a McClatchy News Service report in today's Los Angeles Times.  LINKWhile the debate over capital punishment rages in Texas, the number of inmates sentenced to death row in 2009 is at a 35-year low. Prosecutors have been pushing for fewer death sentences and, many observers believe, juries have become less willing to give them.The biggest game-changer, several prosecutors and defense lawyers said, appears to be the introduction in 2005 of life without parole as an option. Jurors in capital cases previously were responsible for choosing either the death penalty or a life sentence in which a convicted killer could be eligible for parole in 40 years."With life without parole being a viable option now, [juries] feel a lot more comfortable that that person is not going to be let out back into society," Tarrant County Dist...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on December 14, 2009 (boomark / email).