For more analysis, as well as illustrative charts and graphs, read TCADP’s report, Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2022: The Year in Review and check out our fact sheet on the death penalty in Texas, Facts about the Texas Death Penalty.
Executions
The State of Texas has executed 583 people since 1982. Of these, 279 occurred during the administration of Texas Governor Rick Perry (2001-2014), more than any other governor in U.S. history. The State executed five people in 2022. It already has put five people to death to date in 2023 (as of 03/27/23).
Four of the five men executed this year were Black or Hispanic.
Texas currently has one more execution scheduled for April 2023 (as of 03/27/23).
Harris County alone accounts for 133 executions, more than any state except Texas. Dallas County accounts for 63 executions, Bexar County for 46, and Tarrant County for 45.
Death Sentences
To date in 2023, a Texas jury has imposed one new death sentence and rejected the death penalty in another case:
- On February 5, 2023, a Wharton County jury sentenced Robert Allen Satterfield to death for the murder of RayShawn “Baby Ray” Hudson Jr., a four-year-old child. The jury deliberated for only one hour before sentencing Satterfield to death. Satterfield represented himself during the final days of the trial and did not call any witnesses during the punishment phase.
- On February 24, 2023, after three days of deliberations, a Lubbock County jury handed down a sentence of life in prison for 24-year-old Hollis Daniels for the shooting of Floyd East Jr., a Texas Tech Police Officer, in 2017. Daniels was 18 years old at the time of the killing. He pleaded guilty to all charges. After hearing evidence that the killing took place while Daniels was experiencing a drug-fueled mental health crisis, jurors determined there were mitigating circumstances to spare Daniels from the death penalty. Two of the last five capital murder trials in Texas in which prosecutors sought the death penalty have ended with a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Texas has the third-largest death row population in the nation (184), after California* (674) and Florida (302).
*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, more than 70 percent of death sentences have been imposed on people of color; nearly 40 percent were imposed on Black defendants.
To learn more…
Watch “What does race have to do with the death penalty in Texas?”
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 184 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, just two counties (Harris and Smith) have imposed more than one death sentence in the five-year period of 2018 to 2022. One-third of all death sentences imposed by juries in the last five years came from those two counties.
Three counties account for more than half of the current death row population: Harris (69); Dallas (16); and Tarrant (11). No other county has more than eight 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.
Wrongful Convictions and Executions
Since 1973, 190 individuals who spent time on death row have been exonerated, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. This includes 16 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), and most recently, Larry Swearingen, who was put to death in August 2019.
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. 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 three other states (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 26.
144 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice. According to Amnesty International, China, Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria accounted for the most executions in 2021, though it remains difficult to obtain exact numbers in many of these countries.