Report: Texas use of death penalty low but racial bias high

For the 10th consecutive year, death sentences in Texas remained in single digits—a historically low use of capital punishment, a year-end report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty noted.

However, “Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2024: The Year in Review,” released Dec. 19, points to continued racial bias and wrongful convictions in the state’s administration of capital punishment.

“Even as use of the death penalty remains historically low in Texas, it continues to be imposed disproportionately on people of color and dependent largely on geography,” said Kristin Houlé Cuellar, executive director of the coalition that produced the report.

Texas executed five prisoners in 2024: Ivan Abner Cantu on Feb. 28, Ramiro Felix Gonzales on June 26, Arthur Lee Burton on Aug. 7, Travis James Mullis on Sept. 24 and Garcia Glen White on Oct. 1. Two were Black, two were Hispanic, and one was white.

Individuals receiving death sentences in 2024 were Victor Godinez on Jan. 31, Paige Terrell Lawyer on April 24, Jerry Elders on May 2, Gregory Newson on Nov. 13, Christopher Turner on Nov. 20 and Jason Thornburg on Dec. 4.  Five of the six who were sentenced to die are people of color.

‘Inequity based on race’

John Litzler, director of public policy for Texas Baptists’ Christian Life Commission, called the information in the report “disheartening but not surprising.”

“The adage ‘justice is blind’ is a common way to refer to a sense of fairness in our judicial system, but since its inception, capital punishment in Texas has been fraught with issues of inequity based on race,” Litzler said.

The disparity is based not only on the race of the perpetrator, but also on the race of the victim, he noted.

“A defendant is four to five times more likely to receive a death sentence when the victim is white than when the victim was Black,” Litzler said.

The report notes of the 591 executions Texas has carried out since 1982, 115 involved Black people convicted of killing white victims. Only six have involved white people convicted of killing Black victims.

“Overall, 411 of the 591 executions in Texas have involved white victims,” Cuellar noted in response to a question from the Baptist Standard.

Litzler commented: “These statistics and those in the report are in direct contrast to the values and beliefs of Texas Baptists who have repeatedly affirmed that all life is inherently valuable and precious.”

“We should be compelled by both our Christian faith and the American pledge of ‘liberty and justice for all’ to take action,” he said.

“The CLC encourages all Texas Baptists to be knowledgeable and informed about the criminal justice practices in their district, to vote, to participate in jury duty, and to advocate for legislation aimed at removing racial inequality from our system of justice.”

‘Arbitrary nature of the system’

While both the number of death sentences handed down and the number of executions carried out in the state dropped precipitously in recent years, Texas has executed more than any other state since 1982.

Texas was one of nine states that carried out executions in 2024, with Alabama accounting for the most, with six people put to death. Alabama, Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma were responsible for more than three-fourths of the executions. The other states that performed executions were Florida, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Utah.

Texas juries sent six individuals to Death Row in 2024, with three of those sentences handed down by Tarrant County juries. Since 1974, Tarrant County juries have sentenced 76 people to be executed.

One-third of all death sentences in the past five years have come from Tarrant County and Harris County. Juries in only 13 of the state’s 254 counties have imposed new death sentences in the last five years.

“The TCADP annual report for 2024 makes me wonder when the state of Texas will finally decide that maintaining the machinery of death is just not worth it. It is not worth the threat to innocent life, the racially unjust application of the system, and just not worth the cost,” said Stephen Reeves, executive director of Fellowship Southwest.

 “While I’m glad there are so few death sentences handed down, and so few executions, it only highlights the arbitrary nature of the system.”

Wrongful convictions

The report also highlights the problem of wrongful convictions.

In death penalty cases involving Melissa Lucio and Kerry Max Cook, courts made determinations of “actual innocence.” Cook was exonerated by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals nearly 50 years after his conviction. In Lucio’s case, the appeals court is considering whether to accept the trial court’s recommendation to overturn her conviction.

Ivan Abner Cantu was executed in spite of recanted testimony by a key witness and evidence another witness lied at his 2021 trial. Questions about the case prompted the foreman of the jury that convicted him to call for a halt in his execution.

However, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles unanimously denied Cantu’s clemency application, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied his request for a stay of execution.

James Harris Jr., who was scheduled for execution in March, received a stay of execution from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. He and his attorneys asserted the jury selection process was tainted because it dramatically reduced the likelihood of Black potential jurors being called to serve.

Ruben Gutierrez received a last-minute stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court in July. Gutierrez and his lawyers assert DNA testing will confirm he did not kill Ecolastica Harrison in Cameron County in 1998.

The most high-profile case involved Robert Roberson, who faced execution in October before receiving a last-minute temporary stay from the Texas Supreme Court. Roberson was convicted of killing his 2-year-old daughter Nikki, based largely on the discredited “shaken baby syndrome” hypothesis.

Roberson’s attorneys point out new medical and scientific evidence indicates the chronically ill child died of serious health issues, including undiagnosed pneumonia, not homicide.

The case drew attention from a bipartisan group of state lawmakers who took the unusual step of issuing a subpoena for Roberson to appear before the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence.

“The fact that two former death row inmates were declared actually innocent this year alone ought to be enough to stop the march towards state-sponsored killing,” Reeves said.

“The Roberson case proves that even when laws are written to try and stop executions based on bad science, the system still fails the innocent.

“It is well past time that Texas ends this barbaric and unjust practice.”