The Moratorium Years
During the moratorium years, death row was moved from the downtown Huntsville unit to the brand-new Ellis unit, which opened in July 1965. The execution chamber remained at the Huntsville unit. Although executions resumed afterwards, they were still rare at the time. One execution was carried out in 1982, and none in 1983. For the next eight years, executions were carried out at the average rate of five per year. Thus, in the first ten years of capital punishment in Texas, there were 43 executions.
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1992-1999: Pace of Executions Increases
In 1992, the number of executions jumped dramatically. Over the next four years, 62 prisoners were executed, an average of fifteen per year. In 1995, the Texas legislature passed a law which created a short-term effect of virtually stopping executions in Texas while it was being appealed. From March 1996 to January 1997, there was only one execution in the state. However, after the law withstood legal challenge, executions resumed at double their old pace. Over the next three years, there were 92 executions.
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On Thanksgiving Day, 1998, seven death-row prisoners attempted to escape from the Ellis unit. Six were captured on prison grounds, but one prisoner, Martin Gurule, successfully made it outside. However, Gurule was mortally wounded in the attempt, and on 3 December he was found dead in the Trinity river, not far from Huntsville. Because of this incident, Texas began moving the men on death row from the Ellis unit to the Terrell unit. The Terrell unit, opened in 1993, was considered more secure than the Ellis unit. It is located just outside the town of Livingston, about 45 minutes from Huntsville. By law, prisoners are still transported to Huntsville to be executed. The Terrell unit was renamed the Polunsky unit in 2001.
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2000-2005: National Scrutiny
In 2000, several factors caused the death penalty to come under scrutiny unprecedented since the late 1960's to early 1970's. In additon to the long-standing charges that the death penalty is cruel, unfair to minorities, and a barbaric, inhumane instrument unfit for a civilized society, opponents of capital punishment began pressing their belief that innocent people were being executed in the United States.
In January 2000, after several well-publicized exonerations of death row inmates in Illinois, Governor George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in his state until a study could be undertaken to evaluate the practice of capital punishment. This was because DNA testing was becoming more prominant in society, which caused death-penalty opponents to weild attacks on capital punishment. The argument was that DNA evidence should be retested in cases where the defendant's guilt was in doubt.
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2000-2005: National Scrutiny
Between 2000 and 2005, the average number of executions per year in Texas declined from the high 30's to the low 20's. The reaons for this decline could be debated, and may have little to do with the above changes in death penalty law. As of this writing, no Texas death row prisoner has been exonerated by DNA evidence, and the number of prisoners who have had their sentences overturned on the basis of mental retardation has been small. One feasable explanation for the rather marked drop in the pace of executions after 2000 is that laws and court decisions in the 1990's that were designed to reduce a building backlog of death penalty cases accomplished just that, and after that backlog was cleared, the number of executions per year resumed at a more moderate pace. The Supreme Court further restricted the application of the death penalty in 2005, when it ruled that prisoners who commited their capital offenses when they were under age 18 could not be executed.
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2005 to date: Decline in Death Row Population
Prior to 2005, jurors were typically sending 30 or prisoners per year to death row, but since then, the highest number of death sentences imposed in a year has been 15.
In 2011, Texas and other states using lethal injection changed the chemical makeup of the lethal injection, due to a worldwide shortage of one of the drugs that had been used since 1982. The injection now consists of a single dose of pentobarbital, a fast-acting barbituate also used in animal euthanasia. Drug companies that manufacture pentobarbital for commercial sale do not permit its use for execution of criminals (but they do allow it for physician-assisted suicide), so state prisons obtain their supplies from compounding pharmacies. Also in 2011, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice stopped providing special last meals to condemned inmates. This long-standing policy was changed at the request of state senator John Whitmire after inmate Lawrence Brewer declined to take a bite of the lavish feast he had ordered. Condemned inmates are now given a last meal from the same menu available to the rest of the prison unit.
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1983
The Ellis execution facility opened in July 1965. The execution chamber remained at the Huntsville unit. When Texas resumed executions in 1982, prisoners were transported from the Ellis unit, 12 miles north of town, to be executed.
1998
On Thanksgiving Day, 1998, seven death-row prisoners attempted to escape from the Ellis unit. Six were captured on prison grounds, but one prisoner, Martin Gurule, successfully made it outside. However, Gurule was mortally wounded in the attempt, and on 3 December he was found dead in the Trinity river, not far from Huntsville. Because of this incident, Texas began moving the men on death row from the Ellis unit to the Terrell unit. The Terrell unit, opened in 1993, was considered more secure than the Ellis unit. It is located just outside the town of Livingston, about 45 minutes from Huntsville. By law, prisoners are still transported to Huntsville to be executed. The Terrell unit was renamed the Polunsky unit in 2001.
2005
In 2005, Texas changed the law so that capital murderers sentenced to life in prison instead of given the death penalty would be ineligible for parole.
Present
Finally, we present the summation of all the executions. Although counties do not carry out executions, in almost all states the decision to seek the death penalty is made by the county district attorney. A small number of counties are responsible for a disproportionate number of the executions in the United States.
In 2017, for the first time in more than 40 years, no one from the county was executed. No one has been sentenced to death there since 2014. Experts see the landmark as a symbol of shifting attitudes toward the death penalty both in Harris County and around the country. In recent decades, no county has been as prolific in its application of the death penalty as Harris County. If the county were a state, only one state would have executed more people since 1976, the year capital punishment was reinstated in the US: Texas itself.
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Brush on any plot in this visulaization to compare the execution count according to different metrics.
The x-axis deals with age, execution year, and the birth year of the executed.
The y-axis indicates the execution count.
Notice the columns are seperated by race.