The list of people executed by the U.S. state of Texas, with the exception of 1819–1849, is divided into periods of 10 years.
Since 1819, 1,340 people (all but nine of whom have been men) have been executed in Texas as of 5 April 2024.
Between 1819 and 1923, 390 people were executed by hanging in the county where the trial took place. [1] During the American Civil War, three Confederate deserters and a man convicted of attempted rape were executed by firing squad. [1] The law was changed in 1923 requiring executions to be carried out in the electric chair at the Huntsville Unit in Huntsville, Texas. From 1924 to 1964, 361 people were executed in this way. [2] After an 18-year gap following Furman v. Georgia, executions were resumed following new capital-punishment laws passed by the State of Texas (and upheld in Gregg v. Georgia, which also included a companion case from Texas), among them changing the method of execution to lethal injection.
Since 1982 and as of 5 April 2024, 587 people (all of whom were convicted of murder) have been executed by lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit. [3] The number is over four times as many as Oklahoma [4] (the state with the second-highest total of executions in the post-Gregg era and the only one with a higher execution rate) and over 37 times as many as California (the state with the largest number of death row inmates; [5] California has not executed anyone since January 2006, and has a moratorium on capital punishment as of March 2019 [update]).
Executions from 1819
- 1819–1849: 9 executions
- 1850–1859: 18 executions
- 1860–1869: 20 executions
- 1870–1879: 50 executions
- 1880–1889: 64 executions
- 1890–1899: 101 executions
- 1900–1909: 71 executions
- 1910–1919: 51 executions
- 1920–1929: 66 executions
- 1930–1939: 122 executions
- 1940–1949: 78 executions
- 1950–1959: 76 executions
- 1960–1964: 29 executions
- 1982–1989: 33 executions
- 1990–1999: 166 executions
- 2000–2009: 248 executions
- 2010–2019: 120 executions
- 2020–present: 20 executions
See also
- Capital punishment in Texas
- Capital punishment in the United States
- Lists of people executed in the United States
References
- ^ a b The Espy File: 1608–2002. Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
- ^ List of Electrocuted Offenders Archived 2011-06-12 at the Wayback Machine. Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
- ^ List of Executed Offenders. Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved 07 August 2012.
- ^ "Number of Executions by State and Region Since 1976". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved 6 August 2014.
- ^ "Death Row Inmates by State and Size of Death Row by Year". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved 6 August 2014.
Further reading
- Harnsberger, R. Scott. A Guide to Sources of Texas Criminal Justice Statistics [North Texas Crime and Criminal Justice Series, no.6]. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-57441-308-3
External links
