San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
With death penalty, Texas clinging to a relic of the past
In March, Gov. Ralph Northam of Virginia did something Texas Gov. Greg Abbott would consider unthinkable. He signed a bill abolishing the death penalty, making Virginia the first Southern state to stop executions.
It was a significant step for Virginia, the first European colony in what is now the United States to have an execution in 1608. Going back to colonial times, Virginia has carried out more executions — 1,390 — than any U.S. jurisdiction. Since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court, Virginia’s 113 executions trails only Texas’s 570.
But the death penalty landscape is changing.
Last year, there were 17 total executions in the U.S., the fewest in 30 years. Ten of those were federal executions, including one-lame duck execution in Donald Trump’s final days as president. States are losing enthusiasm for executions, and President Joe Biden has signaled his attorney general there will be no more federal executions.
Colorado abolished the death penalty last year, and two states with inglorious death penalty histories — Louisiana and Utah — have gone 10 years without an execution. Texas had three executions last year, a far cry from 2000, when it had 40. Fewer death penalty sentences were handed down nationwide last year than any year since 1977, the year executions resumed in the nation. Texas had only two new death sentences last year.
The pandemic contributed to the slowdown, but the nationwide protests for justice have raised awareness about the injustices in the death penalty. As the capital sentencing system has slowed, it might be impossible for it to climb back to the days when death sentences were common and the death chamber busy.
Three factors drive a growing concern about the death penalty — innocence, money, and race.
No one wants to execute an innocent person, but a close look at history in Texas tells us we have. Cameron Todd Willingham, Ruben Cantu and Carlos De Luna were executed, and it now appears they were innocent. Texas has had 16 exonerations since 1973. The nation has seen a total of 185 exonerations. The death penalty system abounds with mistakes, and with 2,553 people nationwide on death row as of October, there are certainly innocent individuals among them.
Money plays a central role in the death penalty assessment. The costs for a capital trial over a noncapital murder trial, the appellate costs, the years on death row and even the expenses for an execution are vastly greater than noncapital murder cases. One Texas newspaper tallied up the costs in 1992 and concluded getting to an execution cost $2.3 million a case. Today, that figure translates to $4.3 million.
A 2019 study of taxes and crime in Texas found that the expense of capital trials led to increased property taxes and reduced spending for public safety. Not surprisingly, many fiscal conservatives see the death penalty as a waste of money. Life in prison without parole is a much cheaper alternative.
Then there is race. “The modern death penalty is the direct descendant of slavery, lynching, and Jim Crow segregation,” says Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. “Racial Disparities are present at every stage of a capital case and get magnified as a case moves through the legal process.”
One consequence of the racial bias is seen in who gets sentenced to death. Numerous studies point in a consistent direction: Those who kill whites are more likely to get a death sentence than those who kill blacks. Racial bias is seen not in who the killer is but who the victim is.
Texas is holding on to a relic of the past with the death penalty. If Virginia can let it go, so can Texas. It is time for voices of conscience — including the ExpressNews Editorial Board — to make that case loud and clear.
“The death penalty is unjust, racially biased, and ineffective at deterring crime.” From a letter by 12 Virginia prosecutors urging abolition of the death penalty in the state