Texas' use of the death penalty declines
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Texas' execution numbers remain far lower than recent state highs, even as executions nationally climbed, driven almost entirely by a surge in Florida, according to a new year-end report.
Why it matters: Texas judges have set the fewest execution dates in at least three decades in 2025, continuing a steady decline of the state's historically high use of capital punishment.
- Only juries in Harris and Tarrant counties have issued death sentences this year, per the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP).
The big picture: Texas, Alabama and South Carolina have each carried out five executions, trailing only Florida's total, per the Death Penalty Information Center and data compiled by TCADP.
- Florida has led the nation with 18 executions, and a 19th is scheduled for Thursday. The state's executions this year also included a high number of military veterans.
Context: Texas once carried out far more executions than any other state, especially during former Gov. Rick Perry's tenure, but those numbers have fallen sharply.
- Capital trials are costly and lengthy. Plus, public opinion, even among Republicans, is shifting against the death penalty.
What they're saying: Execution dates in Texas are set at the county level when a local district attorney requests one. People executed this year spent about 15 years on death row on average, Kristin Houle Cuellar, executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, tells Axios.
- "Because execution dates are set at the county level, there's inherently an arbitrary and random element — some district attorneys are simply more inclined than others to ask for an execution date," Cuellar said, adding that in Florida, the governor sets execution dates.
Zoom in: Harris County — historically the state's most active death-penalty jurisdiction — issued two death sentences this year. It was the county's first time issuing more than one since 2014.
- A Harris County case is also among the executions already scheduled for next year.
- Since 1982, Harris County alone has accounted for 135 executions, which represents more executions than any state other than Texas. Sixty-four people on death row were sentenced by Harris County juries.
Flashback: Harris County's outsized numbers trace back to the 1980s and '90s, when District Attorneys Johnny Holmes and Chuck Rosenthal aggressively sought death sentences, per Cuellar.
Between the lines: Across the U.S., people of color are overrepresented on death row, per the Death Penalty Information Center.
- More than 70% of people sentenced to death in Texas in the past five years were people of color and more than 40% were Black, per TCADP.