By Citlalli Florez
AUSTIN, TX – A new report was released by the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP) last week, and confirmed the use of the death penalty in Texas remains at historic low levels with eight execution dates this year, the fewest set in the state since 1996.
The report (https://tcadp.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/TCADP-Report-Texas-Death-Penalty-Developments-in-2022.pdf) added Texas was also one of only six states to carry out executions this year, 2022.
TCADP’s report noted only two people were sentenced to death in the state with five individuals executed this year. Three executions were stayed by the Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA). Despite this, there are still concerns about the fairness and utility from the death penalty.
There were four individuals who were put to death this year who suffered from physical or mental impairments or who have had childhood trauma, the report detailed, adding two men also continued stating their innocence for crimes for which they were convicted.
TCADP said one of seven women on death row and the only Mexican-American, Melissa Lucio, came close to being executed this year. However, there was plenty of evidence suggesting the death of her two-year-old daughter was not a homicide, but a tragic accident.
Two days before Lucio’s scheduled execution, the Texas CCA ordered the trial court in Cameron County to consider new evidence of her innocence which had previously not been present to the jury, explained the report.
Flaws and failures from false or misleading testimonies, faulty forensic evidence and abysmal legal representation were some of the reasons, said the death penalty group, that some individuals who were sentenced to death 15 to 30 years ago are now facing execution.
TCADP cites the case of Randy Halprin, a Jewish man on death row, who faced execution in 2019 but was granted a stay by the CCA based on evidence that his trial was tainted by antisemitic bias from Judge Vickers Cunningham.
Texas was almost 11 months into the year before a new death sentence was imposed. This took place in Harris County, where Robert Solis allegedly killed a deputy. Solis represented himself during the trial and did not call witnesses during the punishment phase.
After only 35 minutes of deliberation, the jury sentenced Solis, who is Latino, to death. One of the jurors recounted to a reporter, “Hey, we can have death row in my backyard. I’ll just do it Texas-style, oak tree, and a rope. We didn’t have to go through two weeks, two and a half weeks of trial.”
The report listed Harris and Smith Counties as the only Texas jurisdictions where juries have sentenced more than one person to death in the last five years. Harris County has had nearly 300 people sentenced to death since 1974.
The report suggests as death sentences continue to decline, the death penalty still affects people of color disproportionately. Over the last five years, more than 70 percent of death sentences have been imposed on people of color and 40 percent were imposed on Blacks, only 11.8 percent of the state.
But the report points out that Texas death sentences have dropped 96 percent since its peak in 1999 when juries sentenced 48 people to death. The combined death sentences imposed between 2013 to 2022 matches the death sentences imposed in 1999.
According to Kristin Houlé Cuellar, the TCADP Executive Director and author of Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2022: The Year in Review: “The individuals set for execution likely would meet a different fate if they were charged today.”
Cuellar continued, “Yet because of the high hurdles state and federal courts have erected for review and relief, then older cases from a bygone era of zealous use of the death penalty in Texas remain frozen in time, allowing their execution to proceed despite egregious constitutional violations.”
The report said the U.S. Supreme Court has recently refused to consider the cases of two Black men in Texas who provided evidence of racial bias among jurors who had them sentenced to death. Andre Thomas, one of the men, has severe mental illness and faces execution April 5, 2023.
Thomas suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and blinded himself after his arrest and conviction. He is now being housed in a psychiatric facility as ordered by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, instead of being on death row. He is medicated daily with strong anti-psychotic drugs.
This year, the report charged the intransigence of courts has led local prosecutors to take action in support of relief for individuals on death row. For example, Nueces County District Attorney Mark Gonzalez filed a motion to withdraw the execution date for John Ramirez.
Ramirez did not know of this sought-after motion which a state district judge later rejected. The Texas CCA refused to intervene despite the District Attorney’s request. John Ramirez was executed Oct. 5, 2022.
In the report Cuellar states, “Receiving a death sentence now amounts to a ‘lethal lottery,’ one that does nothing to deter crime or promote public safety.”
She added, “The randomness of capital punishment-coupled with the deeply flawed cases of those who remain on death row-should compel Texans to abandon the death penalty altogether.”
