Lists of people executed in Texas

Huntsville Unit, the location of the State of Texas execution chamber

The list of people executed by the U.S. state of Texas, with the exception of 1819-1849, is divided into periods of ten years.

Since 1819, 1,292 individuals (all but nine of whom have been men) have been executed in Texas as of April 6, 2016.

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 eighteen-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 April 6, 2016, 537 individuals (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 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).

Executions from 1819

1819–49: 9 executions 1850–59: 18 executions 1860–69: 20 executions 1870–79: 50 executions 1880–89: 64 executions 1890–99: 101 executions

1900–09: 71 executions 1910–19: 51 executions 1920–29: 66 executions 1930–39: 122 executions 1940–49: 78 executions 1950–59: 76 executions

1960–64: 29 executions 1982–89: 33 executions 1990–99: 166 executions 2000–09: 248 executions Since 2010: 90 executions

See also

• Capital punishment in Texas
• Capital punishment in the United States
• Lists of people executed in the United States

References

1. The Espy File: 1608–2002. Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
2. List of Electrocuted Offenders. Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved 31 March 2010.
3. List of Executed Offenders. Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Retrieved 07 August 2012.
4. "Number of Executions by State and Region Since 1976". Death Penalty Information Center. Retrieved 6 August 2014.
5. "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

• Texas Scheduled Executions
• Texas Offenders on Death Row