Promoting a fair and just criminal justice system in Texas

• In 1999, there were 48 new death sentences in Texas. In 2011, there have only been 8 new death sentences in Texas.
  Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2010, The Year in Review, Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, December 2010 and Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

• In 2011, Texas executed 13 people.
  Texas Department of Criminal Justice


• In 2010, Texas executed 17 people accounting for over a third of all executions nationwide.
  Death Penalty Information Center & Texas Department of Criminal Justice


• In 2009, Texas executed 24 people accounting for almost half of all executions nationwide.
  Death Penalty Information Center & Texas Department of Criminal Justice


• Texas has accounted for more than1/3 of all modern executions (1976 to the present) in the U.S. with 475 executions as of September 21, 2011.
  Death Penalty Information Center


• Death Penalty Information Center's 2011 End of the Year Report

Wrongful Conviction Facts

All three branches of Texas government have created entities to review issues in the criminal justice system based on the risk of error, but virtually nothing has been done to reduce the most prevalent causes of wrongful convictions.

In 2005, the Texas legislature created and Governor Rick Perry signed legislation creating the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

By executive order, Governor Rick Perry created the Criminal Justice Advisory Council.

In 2008, the highest criminal court in Texas, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, created a Criminal Justice Integrity Unit.

In 2009, the legislature created and the governor approved the Timothy Cole Advisory Panel on Wrongful Convictions.

These four entities all aimed to improve the quality of evidence introduced in criminal cases in Texas and therefore reduce the instances and risk of wrongful convictions. However, despite the stated intentions of these entities, they have not yet resulted in the passage reform measures that effectively address the well known causes of wrongful convictions.

Exoneration Facts

Innocent people can and do get sentenced to death in Texas and across the country

Since 1976, 138 people have been exonerated from death row nationwide.  Twelve of them were in Texas. (Death Penalty Information Center, p. 6)

When innocent people are exonerated, it is often a matter of dumb luck.  For example, the real killer confesses or pro bono law firms take an interest in the case.  It is rarely because the system catches errors and corrects itself.

Both Ernest Ray Willis and Cameron Todd Willingham were convicted of murder by arson and sentenced to death on the basis of junk fire science. Mr. Willingham is dead and Mr. Willis is alive -- and free -- because a pro bono law firm took Mr. Willis’ case.

The fact that some mistakes were discovered in time and innocent people were exonerated strongly suggests that there have been other occasions when mistakes were not discovered in time and innocent people were executed.  

As former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor observed, while noting 90 exonerations from death row in 2001, “If statistics are any indication, the system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed."