Texas' death penalty law prevents judges and lawyers from telling jurors one key point -- if just 1 juror decides the defendant is not a "future danger" the defendant will receive a sentence of life without parole.
Texas has accounted for more than1/3 of all modern executions (1976 to the present) in the U.S. with 449 executions as of January 13, 2010. -- Death Penalty Information Center, 2010
There is no credible evidence that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than long terms of imprisonment. States that have death penalty laws do not have lower crime rates or murder rates than states without such laws.
Studies show that who gets the death penalty is largely determined, not by the severity of the crime, but by: the race, sex, and economic class of the prisoner and victim; as well as geography, since some states have abolished the death penalty.
Research shows that experts' predictions that a defendant will be a "future danger"are wrong 95% of the time. -- Journal of Law and Human Behavior, February 2005
In 2008, Texas executed 18 individuals, accounting for almost 50% of all executions nationwide.
