Clarence Brandley: Ex-Death Row Inmate Still Fighting for Restitution

Clarence Brandley, who spent nearly 10 years on death row for a murder he did not commit, will be back in the news today.

He and supporters are holding a press conference this afternoon to push for restitution from the state for being wrongly imprisoned. Like Anthony Graves, another Texan who spent time in prison for a murder he did not commit, Brandley is being denied compensation because the court order freeing him does not include language declaring him innocent.

"This is a righteous cause to bring justice and have it work the way it is supposed to work," said his brother, Ozell Brandley. "We will hold those public officials accountable for their actions of refusing compensation for those who were wrongfully imprisoned. Their careers should be over if they cannot dispense justice. My brother Clarence and the families of the wrongfully convicted as well as the victims' families deserve more. Clarence and my family have paid a high price for their injustice."

Brandley was convicted for the 1980 rape and murder of a 16-year-old student at the Conroe school where he worked as a janitor. He was freed in 1990.

The judge who heard his plea for exoneration famously said, ""In the thirty years that this court has presided over matters in the judicial system, no case has presented a more shocking scenario of the effects of racial prejudice, perjured testimony, witness intimidation (and) an investigation the outcome of which has been predetermined."

The case became the subject of a made-for-cable movie.

Brandley has faced issues with child support since his release, and has lost a huge lawsuit he filed against various state agencies.

At today's press conference, organizers say, "Representatives of civil rights and community organizations, including Witness to Innocence, the National Black United Front, the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement, and others will be present Wednesday in support of Brandley's claim for compensation."

Source: Houston Press, May 18, 2011

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The state of Texas administers another turn of the screw to Anthony Graves

Administrative madness on a grand scale, Texas style!

Anthony Graves

The injustices just keep on coming for exonerated death row inmate Anthony Graves, freed last year after 18 years' imprisonment for a 1994 capital murder conviction produced by false testimony and prosecutorial misconduct.

After his release, the Texas Comptroller's Office refused to pay the 45-year-old Graves $80,000 per year of wrongful imprisonment compensation because a judge neglected to put the magic words "actual innocence" in the order dismissing charges against him.

Gov. Rick Perry and special prosecutor Kelly Siegler, who helped exonerate Graves, have both acknowledged that he's innocent. But a spokesperson for Comptroller Susan Combs claimed her office did not have the authority to approve the payment. Graves is now suing the state to collect the money.

As the Chronicle's Harvey Rice reports, the Texas Attorney General's Office also is garnisheeing $175 a month from the former inmate's salary as a legal investigator for nearly $5,500 the state claims he owes in back child support while he was behind bars.

The state also seized a $250 honorarium that Graves was to be paid for a presentation to political science students at Prairie View A&M University about his prison ordeal.

"The state of Texas tried to kill me for something I didn't do, and now they are trying to get child support out of me," Graves told Rice. "I feel powerless."

According to a spokesperson for Attorney General Greg Abbott, because a judge ordered then-prisoner Graves to pay the child support in 2002, the AG's office has a legal obligation to collect the money. He did express sympathy for Graves, adding, "his experience is truly troubling and deeply compelling."

Obviously not troubling or compelling enough for the governor, the comptroller and the attorney general to get their heads together and try to cut through the bureaucratic red tape and remedy the continuing effects of a truly horrible miscarriage of justice.

The state took away Graves' freedom for much of his adult life, dismissed on a technicality the compensation owed him by law, and now bills him for the consequences of his wrongful imprisonment. It's a truly sickening situation.

Where there's a will to right an injustice, the most powerful officials in the state must find a way. If they had real sympathy for what this man has suffered, they'd promptly set things right.

Source: Houston Chronicle, Editorial, April 29, 2011

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Compensating the innocent

Small price to pay; As the number of exonerees grows, so does the question of compensation

IN OCTOBER 2010 Anthony Graves was released from death row in Texas. He had spent nearly 20 years in prison, having been charged, in 1992, with helping another man murder a family of six. That man had sworn that Mr Graves was his accomplice, but later had a change of heart. “I lied on him in court,” he said just before he was executed in 2000. That sent the wheels of justice turning, albeit slowly and creakily. In 2006 a circuit court overturned the conviction. Prosecutors began to reassemble the case, and realised that without the false statement, there essentially was none. The district attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charges. On that basis an innocent man was finally exonerated.

This sad story raises a number of troubling issues. Among them is the fact that Mr Graves has been denied any compensation from the state for his long years in prison. Under the state’s 2009 Timothy Cole Compensation Act—an older law which was updated and renamed for another exoneree, who died in prison while serving 25 years for a rape that another inmate subsequently confessed to having committed—people who are wrongfully committed of crimes may collect $80,000 from the state for each year they were imprisoned.

More than half of America’s states have similar laws, and they are being put to use. It is good news, albeit troubling, that hundreds of people have been exonerated in America in the past 20 years. The New York-based Innocence Project, which provides free legal representation to people who it hopes can be exculpated on the basis of DNA evidence, counts no fewer than 268 such exonerations since 1989. That figure partly reflects improved forensic technology, and does not include people such as Mr Graves, who are the victims of perjury or procedural errors and misconduct.

Financial compensation may be only a small response after the gross injustice that exonerees have suffered. But it can help the wrongly accused to rebuild their shattered lives and is a lot better than nothing, which is what some exonerees in some cases receive. Another egregious example comes from Louisiana. In 1985 a man named John Thompson was convicted of murder after prosecutors hid a blood test that would have cleared him of a prior conviction, for armed robbery. That conviction contributed to the murder charge, because in the light of it, Mr Thompson was advised not to testify in court; and, eventually, that led to a capital sentence. The concealed blood test led to another deathbed confession—this time from one of the prosecutors involved. After the confession came to light, both of the convictions were overturned.

Louisiana state law provides a measly compensation of $15,000 a year, up to a maximum of $150,000. Mr Thompson, who had spent 14 years on death row and was within weeks of being executed, sued the district-attorney. In addition to being unjust, it is illegal for prosecutors to withhold exculpatory evidence; they are obligated to turn it over to the defence. A circuit court awarded Mr Thompson $14m, but last month the Louisiana Supreme Court overturned that decision. The majority opinion acknowledged the violation, but held that there was no proof of “deliberate indifference” to civil rights. That is, at best, a technicality.

Anthony Graves:
"Not eligible for compensation"

As for Mr Graves, the holdup in his case rests on another technicality: the state comptroller’s office, which controls the money, noted that Mr Graves had not actually been declared innocent. That, of course, reflects the peculiarities of the case. The charges against Mr Graves were dismissed, per the order, because there was “no credible evidence” against him. The district-attorney decided that since he was obviously innocent, there was no need to go to the trouble of asking a court about it. Last month, Mr Graves sued—not directly to get the money, but to be officially declared innocent so he can be eligible for it. His lawsuit specifies that he “holds no grudge” against the state, and adds that he believes the comptroller “made an honest error” in denying his claim. If only all of America’s states could manage to be so fair-minded.

Source: The Economist, April 13, 2011

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Former DR prisoner Anthony Graves decries justice system

Anthony Graves

Anthony Graves spoke to students on Thursday evening in the University Teaching Center about capital punishment in the United States. Graves was wrongly convicted of the mass murder in 1992 and exonerated in 2010.

After surviving 18 years in prison and 2 death sentences, exonerated prisoner Anthony Graves encouraged students to change the system that imprisoned him.

The state accused Graves of taking part in the murder of 2 women and 4 children and setting their home on fire in 1992. The main witness in Graves’ trial, Robert Carter, was eventually executed for committing the murders. Before Carter’s execution, he admitted to lying under oath about Graves’ involvement. Graves was exonerated in October 2010.

“I am the walking example of the flaws of the death penalty because they tried to murder me twice,” Graves said in a lecture Thursday. “They can’t say Texas doesn’t execute innocents."

Graves spoke about the flaws in the state’s criminal justice system to about 40 people Thursday. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty, a national grassroots organization, hosted the talk partially to address the race and class disparity of inmates.

“It’s an epidemic,” Graves said. “Not a black-and-white issue, not a minority issue. It’s an epidemic."

Death penalty abolitionist Laura Brady compared the United States with Apartheid-era South Africa. From 1948 to 1993, South Africa incarcerated 851 black South Africans per 100,000 black residents. 5 % of the black population in the U.S., or 5,000 out of every 100,000 black residents, are inmates in the U.S., Brady said.

“So what does it mean when the leader of the free world locks up black men at a rate almost 6 times higher than the most openly racist country in our history?” Brady said. “More black men are in prison than attending college."

Brady said more black men are in prison, on probation or on parole than the number subjected to slavery prior to the Civil War.

Lawrence Foster, who also spoke at the event, is the grandfather of death-row inmate Kenneth Foster. A judge sentenced Kenneth Foster to death for acting as an accomplice in a burglary that resulted in a man’s death. Foster is currently serving a life sentence after having his sentence commuted by Gov. Rick Perry in 2007.

“Just imagine the agony of an individual as he is waiting to get executed, as he is waiting to have his life extracted from him,” Foster said, “That’s not execution; that’s murder."

Government lecturer Alan Sager said the death penalty deters crime.

“I used to not view the evidence this way,” Sager said. “However, as I saw the continuing studies over the years and an econometric study showing most death penalty studies reflect the bias of the researchers, my views have changed."

Source: Daily Texan, April 8, 2011

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Exonerated Texas Death Row Inmate Anthony Graves Not Eligible For State Payment

Anthony Graves

A man freed from death row last year after prosecutors determined evidence didn't support his murder conviction isn't immediately eligible for more than $1 million in compensation because his legal documents don't precisely declare him innocent, his attorneys said Monday.

Anthony Graves spent 18 behind bars, nearly half his adult life, before prosecutors determined last October that he wasn't involved in the 1992 slayings of six members of a family in Burleson County, about 100 miles northwest of Houston.

The only evidence tying him to the murders came from his co-defendant, Robert Earl Carter, who absolved Graves shortly before he was executed 10 years ago. An appeals court eventually tossed Graves' conviction, and prosecutors — proclaiming Graves' innocence — decided to drop the case.

But documents submitted to the Texas Comptroller's Office lacked the word "innocent," which is "the magic word," said Graves' attorney, Nicole Casarez. The rejection was outlined in a Feb. 2 letter she received from the comptroller's Office.

"We need to see what our legal options are," Casarez said. "One possibility is a civil lawsuit . . . I don't think there's a precedent for a situation like this because there hasn't been another claimant that had a situation like this before. Usually, these are DNA exonerations, but this was a case where charges were dismissed."

Graves was "incredibly disappointed, as we all are," she said. "As I am too."

Comptroller's Office spokesman R.J. DeSilva said either a pardon from the governor or a court order granting relief needed to be submitted with the wrongful imprisonment compensation claim in order to comply with the compensation law.

"Neither of those documents was sent in with the Graves application, so it could not be approved," he said.

DeSilva said Graves' lawyers had until next week to remedy the situation so the claim could be reconsidered.

Graves spent 2 years awaiting his 1st trial, then another 4 in jail awaiting a 2nd trial. He also spent a dozen years on death row.

Graves and Carter were convicted separately of the murders of Bobbie Davis, 45; Nicole Davis, 16; Denitra Davis, 9; Brittany Davis, 6; Lea 'Erin Davis, 5; and Carter's 4-year-old son, Jason Davis. Court records showed that Carter was upset that one of Davis' daughters, 4 days earlier, had named him in a paternity suit, a step toward seeking child support.

The 6 victims had been stabbed or shot, or both, and were discovered by firefighters responding to a blaze at a home in Somerville in the early morning hours of Aug. 18, 1992. Their killer tried to burn the bodies to hide the deaths, prosecutors said.

Carter took full responsibility for the mass slayings in his final words from the death chamber gurney in Huntsville in May 2000.

During questioning by police, Carter said he set the house on fire but blamed Graves for the murders.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans overturned Graves' conviction in 2006, ruling that prosecutors withheld evidence and elicited false testimony. Graves was removed from death row, then held in the county jail to await retrial.

Current prosecutors in Burleson County blamed the district attorney at the time for botching the case, but Charles Sebesta has defended himself against their criticism.

Source: Associated Press, February 14, 2011

Feb. 17 Update: Perry pledges to help Graves get compensation

GALVESTON — Gov. Rick Perry said that Anthony Graves' capital-murder conviction was a "great miscarriage of justice" and pledged to assist in the effort to win the state compensation denied to Graves by the Texas Comptroller's Office.

Perry said he would help Graves, who spent 18 years behind bars before charges were dropped in October, either through legislative action or "directly with the comptroller's office."

In a Houston appearance Tuesday to discuss the importance of small business to the economy, Perry said he would support efforts to "get this individual the appropriate reimbursement for years that he has spent incarcerated for something that he did not do."

Governor's office spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said Perry could not pardon Graves because a federal appeals court had thrown out the original conviction, and a governor could only pardon a convicted criminal.

The governor's office has been consulting with Graves' attorneys, Nashed said.

"We understand that Anthony Graves is innocent, and have been in contact with his lawyers, who are pursuing every available option to ensure that he is granted the restitution he deserves," she said.

Graves attorney Jeff Blackburn of Amarillo said the governor's statement that Graves is innocent gives a moral boost to the effort to win compensation for him. Click here to read the full article.

Source: Houston Chronicle, February 17, 2011.
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It's time for capital punishment to become Texas history

The death penalty in Texas is fraught with demonstrable error, and the people of the state seem more willing to deal with that fact than their leaders.

Events of the past year have convinced us that defendants have been executed on the basis of invalid evidence. They may or may not have been guilty, but the fact that we have convicted people based on faulty evidence leads inexorably to a horrible likelihood — that we have executed innocent people. The high number of death row prisoners eventually exonerated makes a strong case that other innocent but less fortunate prisoners have been wrongfully put to death.

We don't lose sleep over the execution of guilty murderers. But the possible or probable execution of the innocent should trouble every Texan.

The freeing of Anthony Graves after 18 years in prison, many on death row, for a false murder conviction is only the most recent example of how badly the system is broken. His ordeal underlines how long the victims of wrongful death sentences must suffer in the cases where the errors are discovered before execution.

Two men, Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of murder by arson, and Claude Jones, convicted of murder during a robbery, were executed on the basis of evidence later shown to be questionable or false.

We are heartened by figures showing that Texas and Harris County juries are sending fewer defendants to death row. Once known as the death penalty capital of the United States, Harris County has relinquished that grim title in recent years. If Texas were a nation, it would have been among the top state executioners in the world in past decades, in the company of judicial pariahs like China and Iran.

Since executions resumed in 1976, 464 have been carried out in Huntsville. Texas still led the nation in 2010 with 17 executions, more than twice the number of runner-up Ohio. This past year juries in Texas sentenced only eight people to die, while Harris County has had only two capital punishment sentences handed down.

Legal experts attribute the drop in death judgments to the availability of a life-without-parole statute passed by the Texas Legislature in 2005, and to the escalating costs to counties of the appeals process involving capital sentences. The exoneration of 11 Texas death row residents has undoubtedly made the public - and potential jury pools - more aware of the possibility that a death sentence could be an irreversible mistake.

Still, even as Texas juries show increased restraint in utilizing capital punishment, Texas elected officials - including most jurists - seem equally determined not to examine its flaws. When District Judge Kevin Fine attempted to conduct a hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty as practiced in Texas, Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos first ordered her prosecutors to stand mute in court and then successfully appealed to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to halt the hearing. More than 60 people, including former Texas Gov. Mark White, have filed a brief with the high court in support of allowing the death penalty hearing to go forward.

When the state Forensic Science Commission attempted to investigate whether Willingham was executed for the murder of his three children based on faulty arson evidence, Gov. Rick Perry replaced the commission chairman and several board members. A protracted and inconclusive investigation followed. An attempt by an Austin judge to conduct a hearing on the Willingham case has also been stymied by an appeals judge, who ruled that the jurist should have recused himself.

The accumulating evidence indicates that the current application of the death penalty in Texas involves an unacceptably high risk of killing innocent people. Yet even as the evidence of false convictions and wrongful executions piles up, only the participants at the base of the Texas criminal justice system, jury members, seem to be waking up to the reality of this evil.

Some opponents have called for a moratorium on executions in Texas until new, unspecified safeguards are in place to protect the innocent. Yet it's difficult to imagine a fail-safe route to execution.

Besides, we already have the ultimate safeguard on the books: the sentence of life without parole. Spending the rest of one's days in prison is as terrifying a deterrent to most people as quick execution. By ending state-sanctioned killing, in the future when a jury makes a mistake, resurrection won't be required to remedy it.

Source: Editorial, Houston Chronicle, January 1, 2011

Doubts about the death penalty emerging in Texas

Polunsky Unit, Texas' Death Row
Click here for more

In the past, Texas has appeared unwavering in its support for the death penalty.

Even as other states explored alternatives or abolished capital punishment altogether, Texas was resolute.

But new numbers tell a different story, suggesting that doubt is creeping into the state's psyche. While Texas is still No. 1 with a bullet, carrying out more than twice as many executions as any other state, the number of new death sentences has plummeted.

In 2010, only eight Texas juries sentenced someone to die – a record low since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. Compare that with 1999, when 48 juries in our state handed down death sentences.

The Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, which detailed this downward shift in a new report, dubbed this the Year of Doubt.

In Texas, as in other states, multiple factors likely have contributed to the declining number of death sentences. Life in prison without parole has emerged as a viable punishment option. The exorbitant costs associated with death row also have made death by prison a more cost-effective approach.

Even more important, though, may be the advances in DNA that have laid bare the failings of the justice system. Exonerations have confirmed what many suspected: Texas doesn't always get it right – an unacceptable outcome when the punishment is irreversible.

Watching Anthony Graves walk out of the Burleson County Jail should shake the confidence of even the most ardent death-penalty proponents. He's an innocent man who spent 18 years in prison and 12 years on death row for murders he did not commit.

This year, six other condemned Texas inmates had their sentences reduced on appeal, as the missteps of prosecutors, judges and juries were revealed.

As Texans see these errors exposed in several high-profile cases, they understandably may be less inclined to risk making an irreparable mistake. Prosecutors can no longer count on juries to mete out a death sentence whenever one is sought.

In 2010, three Texas juries rejected the death penalty in capital murder cases and instead opted for life sentences without parole, according to the coalition's research.

This newspaper has highlighted the fallibility of the system as we've called for the abolishment of the death penalty. And while our state was one of only 12 that carried out executions in 2010, this new report signals some discomfort with Texas' machinery of death.

These findings should spur legislative efforts to fix the most preventable flaws in our justice system. Most lawmakers have shown little interest in ending capital punishment, but they should be able to agree on reforms that address weaknesses in our judicial process.

Texas still is a long way from leading justice reform efforts. But a look back at 2010 suggests that our state is at least inching in the right direction.

Texas, by the numbers

3 juries rejected death sentence and chose life without parole in 2010

7 death sentences have been imposed in Dallas County since 2007, more than any other Texas county; The county also leads the nation in DNA exonerations

8 juries sentenced killers to die in 2010

17 people were executed this year

37 percent of U.S. executions occurred in Texas in 2010

48 juries handed down death sentences in 1999

SOURCE: Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Source: DallasNews.com, Editorial, December 22, 2010

Only 2% of Texas Counties Imposed Death Sentences This Year, According to New Report from TCADP

Huntsville Unit, Huntsville, where
executions by lethal injection
are carried out in Texas.

Death sentences, executions drop in 2010 as concerns about reliability and fairness continue to plague Texas death penalty system.

Death sentences in Texas have dropped more than 70% since 2003, reaching a historic low in 2010 according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty's (TCADP) new report, Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2010: The Year in Review. TCADP, an Austin-based statewide, grassroots advocacy organization, releases this annual report each December in conjunction with the anniversary of the resumption of executions in Texas in 1982.

Juries condemned eight new individuals to death in Texas in 2010, which is the lowest number of new death sentences since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas' revised death penalty statute in 1976. These new sentences occurred in 6 counties: Brazos; Dallas; Harris; Nueces; Rusk; and Travis.

Recent sentencing trends illustrate the arbitrary and biased imposition of the death penalty. An analysis of data from 2007 to 2010 reveals that only 21 counties – 8% of the 254 counties – meted out death sentences over the last 4 years.

Out of a total 43 death sentences imposed statewide between 2007 and 2010, Dallas County leads with 7, followed closely by Harris County, with 6 new sentences. Bexar and Travis Counties each accounted for 3 new death sentences since 2007. Nearly 3/4 of all death sentences in Texas over the last 4 years have been imposed on people of color – 40% African American, 30% Hispanic/Latino, and 2% other.

As part of the report, TCADP has produced 2 interactive maps highlighting new death sentences by county from 2007 to 2010 and from 1976 to 2010. Clicking on each county reveals the total number of sentences, the number executed, the number awaiting execution, and the number exonerated. See below for links to each map.

The number of executions also dropped in 2010. The State of Texas executed17 people, the lowest number since 2001. The state remains the nation's leading executioner, accounting for approximately 37% of U.S. executions in 2010. The number of executions in Texas this year represents a smaller percentage of the national total than it has in recent years, however.

"Texas – along with the rest of the nation – is moving away from the death penalty," said Kristin Houlé, Executive Director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. "The system is broken beyond repair, and the continued decline in new death sentences shows that jurors and prosecutors in Texas are seeking other ways to address violent crime."

Concerns about wrongful convictions and emerging evidence of wrongful executions dominated headlines this year. On October 27, 2010 Anthony Graves walked out of the Burleson County Jail after spending 18 years in prison – including 12 years on death row – for a crime he did not commit. Prosecutors dropped all charges against Graves and declared him innocent after conducting their own investigation of the case. His conviction was based on the testimony of Robert Carter, who was convicted and executed for the same crime in 2000 and who recanted several times, including from the gurney. Anthony Graves is the 12th person in Texas to be wrongfully convicted and removed from death row and the 138th nationwide.

The ongoing inquiry into the case of Cameron Todd Willingham also underscored the fallibility of the system. Willingham was executed in 2004 for setting a fire to his Corsicana home in 1991 that killed his 3 young daughters. The Texas Forensic Science Commission admitted "flaws" in the science used to convict him. In January it will hold a special meeting with some of the fire experts who have examined the case since the time of conviction and concluded that there was no evidence to support the finding of arson.

In another case of "flawed" science, recent DNA testing of evidence that was used to convict and execute Claude Jones ten years ago this month revealed that the strand of hair belonged to the victim, not to Jones, as a forensic expert testified during his 1990 trial. While the DNA results do not exonerate Jones, they raise serious questions about the reliability of his conviction.

Other highlights of Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2010: The Year in Review include the following:

* In 3 capital murder trials, juries rejected the death penalty and opted for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Over the last 3 years, juries have rejected the death penalty in a dozen cases (2 each in Travis and Bexar Counties).

* 3 inmates scheduled for execution in 2010 received last-minute stays; the execution date of another inmate was withdrawn. On March 24, Henry “Hank” Skinner received a stay from the U.S. Supreme Court shortly after eating his "last meal." In October, the Court heard arguments to determine whether Skinner can seek access to post-conviction DNA testing through the federal Civil Rights Act. Texas officials have refused to release key pieces of evidence gathered at the crime scene in 1993 for testing.

* At least 6 inmates received reduced sentences in 2010 and were removed from the death row population, including several inmates whose death sentences were overturned because jurors did not hear mitigating evidence during their original trials. 3 other inmates died in custody, including Ronald Chambers, who spent 35 years on death row and was awaiting a 4th sentencing hearing related to the 1975 murder of Mike McMahan.

* A nationwide shortage of the 1st drug used in the lethal injection protocol, sodium thiopental, led some states to postpone executions as their supplies dwindle or expire. In November, officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice revealed that they had enough drugs on hand to execute 39 people, but that doses of sodium thiopental will expire in March 2011.

* There currently are 317 people (307 men and 10 women) on death row in Texas. Texas holds the 3rd-largest death row population in the nation, after California (713) and Florida (393).

"2010 may go down in history as the 'Year of Doubt,' when case after case exposed the flaws and failures of the Texas death penalty and shook public faith in the criminal justice system to its core," said Houlé. "During this time of fiscal crisis, TCADP urges all elected officials to take a good hard look at the death penalty system and ask whether this is a good use of tax payers' dollars when there are alternative ways to protect society and punish those who are truly guilty."

Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2010: The Year in Review is available online at www.tcadp.org/TexasDeathPenaltyDevelopments2010.pdf . Contact Kristin Houlé at khoule@tcadp.org to receive a copy directly via email.

See http://tcadp.org/2007-2010-new-death-sentences/ for a map of new death sentences by county from 2007 to 2010.

See http://tcadp.org/death-sentences-by-county1976-2010/ for a map of death sentences by county from 1976 to 2010.

Download a pdf version of this press release. Obtener una copia de este anuncio.

Source: Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, December 13, 2010

Death penalty use drops in Texas to record low

Only 8 people were condemned to die in Texas this year, the lowest number since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to a new report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Despite Texas' bloodthirsty international image, only two percent of Texas counties used the death sentence this year: Brazos, Dallas, Harris, Nueces, Rusk and Travis. Dallas sent two of the eight to death row this year.

Source: Dallas Morning News, December 13, 2010