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USA - Texas. Texas Death Penalty Declining in Use — 2024 in Review

January 24, 2025:

January 24, 2025 - TEXAS. Texas Death Penalty Declining in Use — 2024 in Review
According to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s annual Year in Review, Texas’ death row continued to shrink in 2024, reflecting prosecutors’ increasing reluctance to bring new capital cases and juries’ growing reluctance to sentence individuals to death. Texas juries imposed just six new death sentences in 2024, marking the tenth consecutive year of single-digit death sentences. Five of those six involved defendants of color, following another long-observed trend. In 1999, twenty-five years ago, there were 48 new death sentences. The sentences were geographically concentrated — three of the six came from Tarrant County, where all the defendants were people of color. Tarrant County has the third-highest number of people sentenced to death in Texas since 1974, behind Harris and Dallas counties.
Texas’ continued decline in new death sentences reflects a broader shift in public attitudes and prosecutorial practices in the death penalty states. Across the U.S., 26 new death sentences were imposed in 2024, marking the tenth consecutive year that less than 50 death sentences have been imposed nationally. According to the TCADP report, only thirteen of Texas’ 254 counties have had juries willing to vote for a death sentence over the past five years, and only juries in Harris and Tarrant counties delivered more than one death sentence during this period: one third of all death sentences in the state came from Harris and Tarrant Counties. Texas was among four states (plus Alabama, California, and Florida) responsible for 76% of new death sentences in the United States in 2024. Only ten states– Alabama, Arizona, California, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas– handed down death sentences in 2024. The majority of U.S. states, 28, have now either abolished the death penalty or have paused executions by executive action.
As of December 19, 2024, 174 people remain on Texas’ death row, the smallest population since 1985. This is in line with a steady decline in recent years. The death row population in Texas dropped to under 200 inmates in 2022 for the first time in almost three decades. According to reporting by the Texas Tribune, since 2020, for every person executed (24) nearly as many individuals had their sentences reductions or convictions overturned (22). According to TCADP, nine men also have died on death row before their execution date since 2020.
In 2024, Texas executed five individuals, four of whom were Black or Hispanic, underscoring continued concerns about the disproportionate impact of the death penalty on people of color. Harris County, a historically high-user of the death penalty, was responsible for two executions in 2024. Despite this, the number of executions per year in Texas has remained below 10 since 2019. Harris County has executed 135 individuals since 1997, the most of any county in the United States; two of those executions took place in 2024.
The report also highlights several high-profile cases that underscore the fallibility of Texas’ death penalty system, including that of Melissa Lucio. Ms. Lucio, the only Hispanic woman on Texas’ death row, was convicted of killing her two-year-old daughter Mariah in 2007. New forensic findings suggest her daughter died from an accidental fall, not intentional harm or abuse. In October 2024, Judge Arturo Nelson recommended overturning her conviction after hearing expert testimony about the medical evidence and the circumstances surrounding her interrogation and found that Ms. Lucio “is actually innocent; she did not kill her daughter.” Ms. Lucio was interrogated by police for five hours about Mariah’s death and asserted her innocence more than 100 times throughout the interrogation. Ms. Lucio came within two days of being executed in April 2022, before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ordered the trial court to consider multiple claims bolstered with new evidence that support, she is innocent, and Mariah’s death was the result of an accident.
The high-profile case of Robert Roberson, who was scheduled for execution in October 2024, drew significant national attention to innocence claims this past year. Mr. Roberson was granted a stay of execution by the Texas Supreme Court after an unprecedented subpoena from the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence. Ultimately the Texas Supreme Court ruled that the legislature could not issue subpoenas to intervene in scheduled executions. Mr. Roberson was convicted and sentenced to death in 2003 for the death of his daughter, Nikki, who medical experts have since determined died from severe viral and bacterial pneumonia that doctors failed to diagnose, not from abuse or Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). Mr. Roberson’s conviction relied largely on the now-debunked SBS hypothesis, which his attorneys now argue is not supported by modern medical science. More than a dozen Texas legislators, including Republicans and Democrats, submitted letters urging the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to intervene. Faith leaders, medical professionals, and advocates against junk science also rallied to his defense, emphasizing the urgent need to reconsider convictions based on outdated forensic methods. Mr. Roberson’s execution has not been rescheduled in the wake of the state Supreme Court decision lifting his stay.
Texas currently has four executions scheduled for 2025, not including Mr. Roberson.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-spotlight-texas-death-penalty-declining-in-use-2024-in-review