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Capital punishment is a legal penalty in the U.S. state of Texas for murder, and participation in a felony resulting in death if committed by an individual who has attained or is over the age of 18. In 1982, the state became the first jurisdiction in the world to carry out an execution by lethal injection , when it executed Charles Brooks Jr.
In 2023, juries in Texas sent three new people to death row. In two other capital cases, jurors rejected the death penalty and the defendants were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. To date in 2024, Texas juries have imposed three new death sentences:
Texas has the Law of Parties, which allows offenders to be sentenced to death if present while a capital crime is being committed based on the offender being “criminally responsible for the conduct of another.”
A total of 361 inmates were electrocuted in the State of Texas. When capital punishment was declared "cruel and unusual punishment" by the U.S. Supreme Court on June 29, 1972, there were 45 men on death row in Texas and seven in county jails with a death sentence.
Currently, Texas state law exclusively utilizes lethal injection when it exercises the death penalty. Originally only executing people by hanging, the method immediately prior to lethal injection was the electric chair. The electric became the method for capital punishment in Texas in 1923.
Texas leads the country in capital punishment for capital homicide. Learn more about Texas capital punishment laws in this FindLaw article.
Texas has become ground zero for capital punishment. Between 1976 (when the Supreme Court lifted its prohibition on the death penalty) and 1998 Texas executed 167 people. Next in rank was Virginia which executed 60 during the same period.
Texas followed suit, reinstating capital punishment in 1982 and quickly becoming home to the nation's busiest execution chamber. A 1972 U.S. Supreme Court opinion that the states' use of the...
The Capital Punishment Clinic provides an opportunity for students to work directly with faculty members on the representation of indigent persons facing the death penalty in Texas. Since the Clinic was established in 1987, more than 425 students have engaged in hands-on legal work in capital cases at all levels, including at the United States ...
Milestones in capital punishment in Texas: 1819 — George Brown is first person executed in Texas, by hanging. 1863 — Chipita Rodriguez is first woman executed in Texas, by hanging. 1923 — Lee Nathan becomes the last of 394 people executed by hanging.