For trends and analysis of the death penalty landscape, read Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2025: The Year in Review.
For more information, download Facts about the Death Penalty.
Executions
The State of Texas has executed 597 people since 1982, more than any other state by far. Seventy-two percent of Texas’s executions occurred between 1996 and 2015; the past decade accounts for just 11 percent of executions in Texas since 1982.
On January 28, 2026, Texas carried out the nation’s first execution of the year, putting Charles Thompson to death for killing Dennise Hayslip, his on-and-off girlfriend, and her friend Darren Cain in 1998 in Tomball (a Houston suburb) during what appeared to be a crime of passion. Thompson, who was 55, spent nearly 27 years on death row.
Harris County alone accounts for 136 executions, which is more than any state except Texas. Dallas County accounts for 66 executions, Bexar County for 46, and Tarrant County for 46.
There are three more people currently scheduled to be executed in 2026. All three are Black men who were convicted in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.
In 2025, Texas executed five men: Steven Nelson; Richard Tabler; Moises Mendoza; Matthew Johnson; and Blaine Milam.
Two other men received stays of execution:
David Wood, who was scheduled to be put to death on March 13, 2025, received a stay from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Robert Roberson, an innocent man, was set to be put to death on October 16, 2025, for a crime that never occurred. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted a stay and sent his case back to the trial court for further review on October 9.
Death Sentences
Harris and Tarrant counties are currently the state’s most aggressive death penalty jurisdictions and the only counties where prosecutors pursued new death sentences last year. In 2025, jurors in Harris County (Houston) sentenced two people to death.
It was the first time since 2014 that more than one person was tried on capital murder charges and sentenced to death in Harris County. Twenty-three of the last 24 defendants sentenced to death in Harris County are people of color.
In Tarrant County (Fort Worth), prosecutors sought the death penalty in two cases last year. The jury rejected the death penalty in one case but imposed a death sentence on Valerian O’Steen. O’Steen was the first white defendant in Tarrant County to go to trial with death on the table since 2011.
In 2024, Texas juries imposed six new death sentences; three of these sentences came out of Tarrant County.
To date in 2026, a Texas jury has sentenced one person to death. An Eastland County jury imposed a death sentence on Cody Pritchard on January 23, 2026. He was convicted of killing Eastland County Sheriff’s Deputy David Bosecker, who was responding to a domestic disturbance call in July 2023. It is the first death sentence in Eastland County in the “modern” death penalty era.
Texas has the third-largest death row population in the nation (168), after California* (580) and Florida (253).
*On March 13, 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a moratorium on executions.
Death Sentences by Race and Gender
Race
As death sentences in Texas decline, they continue to be applied disproportionately to people of color. Over the last five years, nearly 70 percent of death sentences have been imposed on people of color; more than 40 percent were imposed on Black defendants. In 2025, two of the three men sentenced to death are people of color.
Additional resources:
Watch “What does race have to do with the death penalty in Texas?”
Read Arbitrary and Capricious: Examining Racial Disparities in Harris County’s Pursuit of Death Sentences.
Read “Race and ‘future dangerousness’ in the Texas death penalty”.
Read “Enduring Injustice: the Persistence of Racial Discrimination in the U.S. Death Penalty”.
Gender
According to TDCJ, there are currently 168 people on Texas’s death row, including 7 women. This is the smallest Texas death row population since 1985, when 188 people awaited execution, according to research by TCADP.
Death Sentences by County
As displayed in this interactive map, jurors in just two counties— Harris and Tarrant—have sentenced more than one person to death since 2021.
Three counties account for more than half of the current death row population: Harris (62); Dallas (11); and Tarrant (14). No other county has more than seven individuals on death row at this time.
Less than 20% of the 254 counties in Texas account for the current population of death row.
Learn more about the death penalty at the county level here.
- 4 Death Sentences
- 3 Death Sentences
- 2 Death Sentences
- 1 Death Sentence
Wrongful Convictions and Executions
Since 1973, more than 200 individuals who spent time on death row have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. This includes 18 people convicted and sentenced to death in Texas.
There also is strong evidence that the State of Texas has executed innocent people, including Carlos DeLuna, Ruben Cantu, Cameron Todd Willingham, Gary Graham (Shaka Sankofa), Larry Swearingen, and Ivan Cantu.
Learn more about wrongful executions in Texas at TCADP’s Wrongful Execution page and DPIC Special Report: The Innocence Epidemic.
Cost of the Death Penalty
See TCADP’s fact sheet on the cost of the death penalty for details.
Recent news:
“Harris County spent $1.8 million in taxpayer funds to defend Xavier Davis in death penalty trial,” Houston Chronicle, May 30, 2025
“How the El Paso Walmart shooting prosecution cost $6 million, even without a trial,” El Paso Matters, May 14, 2025
For additional information, read “Experts discuss cost of the death penalty amid era of growing decline,” Community Impact Newspaper (Richardson edition), March 18, 2020.
National and International Abolition
Eleven states – Colorado, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut, Washington, Maryland, New Hampshire, and, most recently, Virginia – have abandoned the death penalty in recent years through legislative or judicial action. A total of 23 states and the District of Columbia do not allow the death penalty.
Governors in four other states (Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and California) have imposed a moratorium on executions, bringing the total number of states that have either ended the death penalty or have a moratorium to 27.
113 countries have abolished the death penalty for all crimes. According to Amnesty International, just 15 countries carried out executions in 2024. The five countries with the highest number of executions in 2024 were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Yemen. The United States ranked seventh. Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia accounted for 91% of recorded executions. It remains difficult to determine the exact number of executions in some countries.
Late Adolescence and the Death Penalty
On March 1, 2005, the United States Supreme Court held in Roper v. Simmons that it is unconstitutional to execute someone under the age of 18 at the time of the crime due to the diminished culpability of developing adults. The Court acknowledged, however, that drawing the line at 18 was an arbitrary cutoff with no true basis to distinguish it from late adolescence.
- Since 2005, 64 people in Texas have been executed for crimes committed when they were under the age of 21. Of these, 48 were people of color (32 were Black and 16 were Hispanic).
- Of the 168 people currently on death row in Texas, 30 were sentenced for crimes committed when they were under the age of 21. Fifteen of these sentences are from Harris County alone.
- Seventeen of these individuals did not have an education beyond 10th grade; 93% are people of color.
Additional resources:
- Download TCADP’s Late Adolescence and the Death Penalty fact sheet.
- Watch the webinar, “Marking 20 Years of Roper v. Simmons and Redrawing the Line” (password: #=t0lu$q).
- Read Immature Minds in a “Maturing Society”: Roper v. Simmons at 20, a report from the Death Penalty Information Center.
