Texas Death Penalty & Capital Punishment Laws

Being convicted of a serious violent crime in Texas can be a life-threatening event.

The Lone Star State is notorious for coming down especially harsh on capital crimes such as homicide and murder.

In fact, Texas has executed more prisoners since 1976 than any other state in the country, with over 540 offenders receiving capital punishment sentencing – more than a third of the national total. Harris County alone has been responsible for over 280 death sentences and 116 executions since 1982.

1. The victim was a police officer, fireman or person acting in the lawful discharge of an official responsibility

2. The murder occurred while the defendant was committing or attempting to commit burglary, robbery, kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault, arson, obstruction or an act of terrorism

3. The murder was paid for (both the hirer and the person hired)

4. The death occurred during an actual or attempted prison break

5. The victim was killed while working at a penal institution

6. The defendant committed murder while in prison for a previous murder conviction, or while serving a sentence of life imprisonment or a term of 99 years for aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault or aggravated robbery

7. Multiple people were killed due to the defendant’s actions

8. The victim was younger than 10 years old

9. The murder was in retaliation to a ruling by 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

The death penalty has been used as a form of capital punishment since ancient times, as discovered in the Code of Hammurabi. Murder, rape, treason and arson were punishable by death in Ancient Greece and Rome. This ancient legal philosophy of lex talionis (“an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, and life for a life”) spread through Western Europe and continued throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times. Today, the death penalty remains a highly controversial part of the American criminal justice system used to justify capital punishment in certain states.

The first recorded execution in Texas occurred in 1819 when an accused pirate by the name of George Brown was hung to death. In 1840, Henry Forbes, an African American, received the death penalty for breaking out of jail. In total, Texas carried out eight capital punishment executions before gaining statehood in 1846. For the next 80 years or so, Texas carried out the death penalty by hanging in most cases. In 1923, the state changed its death penalty law so that capital punishments were done via electric chair.

Map courtesy of DeathPenaltyInfo.org

In 1972, the Supreme Court made an historic ruling in the case of Furman v. Georgia, declaring that the “unitary” trial process (when a jury was asked to give their verdict of a defendant’s guilt or innocence and, simultaneously, sentence the defendant to life imprisonment or the death penalty) was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment.” This decision essentially brought into question all death penalty sentences in Texas and nationwide.

The Supreme Court has since set down a new “bifurcated” trial process (where the trial and sentencing stages are separate) and detailed constitutional requirements for sentencing a defendant to death. These new standards strictly limit the legal definition of capital murder to which the death penalty may be applied and makes capital punishment unconstitutional unless the jury is able to appropriately consider mitigating and aggravating factors – such as a defendant’s background, record, character and circumstances of the crime – to make an individualized decision about whether death would be appropriate.

Just four years later, in 1976, the Supreme Court once again permitted capital punishment to be imposed in the case of Gregg v. Georgia, and a companion case in Texas was upheld by the Court. The first state-sanctioned execution following this ruling did not occur until 1982, when Texas became the first governmental jurisdiction in the world to carry out a death penalty execution by lethal injection. The man executed, Charles Brooks, Jr., was also the first African American to receive the death penalty in the United States since 1967.

From then until now, the state of Texas has executed over 540 people, including nine women.

The Supreme Court has also since ruled that the death penalty is unconstitutional when applied to minors and people with developmental disabilities; however, the Texas government has yet to set appropriate standards and procedures in cases involving defendants with mental retardation.

There is conflicting statistical evidence that capital punishment deters would-be future criminals. According to many sources, the deterrent effect has clearly been proven false. This side argues that the murder rate in non-death penalty states has remained consistently lower than the rate in states with the death penalty, and the gap has grown since 1990.

On the other side, some experts claim they have found strong evidence to support a deterrent effect between capital punishment and murder rates.

Chart courtesy of DeathPenaltyInfo.org

Arguments FOR the Death Penalty:

• The threat of capital punishment deters future criminals.
• The death penalty is appropriate justice for a particularly heinous act.
• The defendant will never be able to escape or commit a crime again, making society safer.
• The death penalty provides closure for the victim’s family and loved ones.
• Capital punishment is less of a financial burden to society than the ongoing cost of life imprisonment.

Arguments AGAINST the Death Penalty:

• Statistics indicate that the death penalty does not meaningfully affect murder rates, meaning it may not be a deterrent.
• Death is an excessively harsh punishment; life imprisonment without parole is sufficient.
• Death is final and cannot be reversed, even if future evidence exonerates the defendant. Wrongful executions have occurred in a number of high-profile cases in Texas history, including Claude Jones, Cameron Todd Willington, Ruben Cantu, David Spence, & Carlos de Luna
• The act of killing a criminal defendant is itself a violent and evil act.
• The problem of racial bias in the American criminal justice system makes capital punishment unfairly targeted towards the non-white population.