July 2 marked the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Gregg v. Georgia (1976), which upheld the newly crafted death penalty statutes of several states (including that of Texas) […]
Author: Kristin
Kristin Houlé Cuellar is the Executive Director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP).
On Friday, June 25, 2010, a Brazoria County jury rejected the death penalty for Nicholas-Michael Edwin Jean and instead sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. […]
New TX Death Sentence
On Friday, June 18, 2010, a Dallas County jury sentenced Donald Andrew Bess to death for the rape and murder of SMU student Angela Samota in 1984. The case had […]
Earlier this week, State District Judge Paul Murphy granted a motion from The Innocence Project and the Texas Observer and ordered local prosecutors to turn over a one-inch strand of […]
On June 16, 2010, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the death sentence of Adrian Estrada, who was convicted of the 2005 murder of Stephanie Sanchez in Bexar County. […]
Powell Executed
David Lee Powell was executed by the State of Texas on Tuesday, June 15, 2010. He had spent 32 years on death row for the 1978 murder of Austin police […]
This past Friday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles voted unanimously to deny clemency to David Lee Powell, who is scheduled to be executed this evening in Huntsville. On […]
On June 9, 2010, the Texas Task Force on Indigent Defense approved a modest expansion of the West Texas Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases, which was created in 2007 […]