Death sentences remained near historic low levels in Texas in 2018, yet the state’s capital punishment system is still plagued by racial bias, geographical disparities, and fundamental unfairness, according to a new report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP). The number of death sentences and executions in 2018 was consistent with lower use of the death penalty in Texas over the last 10 years. New death sentences remained in the single digits for the ninth time in ten years, with Texas juries condemning seven individuals to death. All seven men sentenced to death in Texas in 2018 are people of color.
Tag: racial bias
Clarence Brandley, who spent nine years on death row in Texas before his exoneration in 1990, passed away on September 2, 2018 at the age of 66. He came within six days of being executed for a crime he did not commit.
Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas death row inmate Duane Buck is entitled to a new sentencing hearing. Buck was sentenced to death after a Houston jury heard false and unconstitutional testimony from a defense “expert” that he was more likely to be a future danger because he is black.
The State of Texas executed Terry Edwards around 10:00 PM last night, despite significant concerns about his culpability in the crime, allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, and racial bias in the […]
Tonight, January 26, 2017, Terry Edwards is scheduled to be put to death for the 2002 murders of Tommy Walker and Mickell Goodwin in Dallas County. His May 2016 execution date was […]
On October 5, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments describing racial bias in the death penalty case of Duane Buck. Duane Buck was condemned to death in 1997, after his […]
The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a bi-partisan coalition of 40 prominent Latino organizations, has endorsed abolition of the death penalty. According to Juan Cartagena, co-chair of the NHLA Civil Rights committee and president of LatinoJustice, “The racialized aspects of the imposition of the death penalty in the United States could not just be overlooked, and that became the unifying piece.”
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Buck v. Stephens, a Texas death penalty case raising extraordinary issues of racial bias. Duane Buck was condemned to death in 1997 in Harris County after his own trial attorneys inexplicably introduced testimony from a psychologist who stated that Buck was more likely to be dangerous in the future because he is Black.