Our Powerful New Initiatives this Year
Dear Supporters,
This past year has been an exciting one for us at TDS. We continued our advocacy for people facing society’s harshest punishment, the death penalty. And we expanded our impact to serve people facing excessive punishments beyond the death penalty here in Texas, Ground Zero for mass incarceration.
Here are some highlights from our powerful new initiatives this year:
- We advocated for people serving life sentences for crimes they had little or no involvement in under Texas’s incredibly harsh “law of the parties.”
- We represented people convicted as children and unconstitutionally sentenced to mandatory life without parole.
- We launched a new project to seek second chances for people who are legally eligible for parole and are eager to go home and become breadwinners, taxpayers, and community leaders.
- We poured hundreds of hours into researching the causes of excessive incarceration and racially disproportionate sentencing in Texas—and what policymakers can do to transform them.
With gratitude,
Burke Butler
Executive Director
Texas Defender Service
P.S. To learn more about our work and our mission, check out our 2023 Impact Report on our website!
