Is The End Of The Death Penalty Near? Just Look At Texas

The State of Texas carried out its tenth death penalty sentence of the year last night as Miguel Paredes was executed by lethal injection for the murder of three men in 2000. There are no other executions planned for the Lone Star State in 2014.

While ten is almost a rate of one per month, Texas has, in the past, used the death penalty on upwards of 30 or more in a year. They executed 40 in the year 2000. Texas is, by far, the state that executes the most criminals. And in 2014, that number is only 10. Why the sudden drop in the number of death penalties carried out?

Is it the lack of supplies? Texas is a lethal injection state and the drugs used to carry out the death penalty come from overseas suppliers. As explained by the Atlantic, those suppliers have stopped selling the drugs to the U.S., Texas specifically. And states have tried to circumvent the loss of supplies by creating their own concoctions, like this past summer in Arizona, as reported in the Inquisitr, where an inmate suffered for two hours after the “new” cocktail of death drugs failed to do its job. The lack of death penalty drugs has led to calls from some states to re-instate the electric chair as a means of execution. More barbaric, other states — including Arizona — have looked at firing squads and even guillotines as instruments of death.

Is finding new and creative ways to execute our convicted criminals the answer? A recent Gallup poll shows that six out of ten Americans support the death penalty. And as long as crimes are committed, punishments must be rendered under our criminal justice system. Critics have long since argued that executions are racially divided, with minorities being put to death in greater numbers than whites. But not in Texas. As shown by a report by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, in 2000, when the state executed 40 inmates, the majority of those executed were white. In 1997, when Texas put 37 inmates to death, 21 of those were white. Since Texas leads the nation in all things death penalty, they too can serve to make a point. And that point is that the number of executions are down to the lowest number since 1996, when Texas executed only three people. Coincidentally, 1996 is also the year that Congress passed legislation restricting federal appeals for death penalties with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. After 1996, it became easier for states to execute their convicted criminals and Texas took the point, pushing their number from three in 1996 to 37 in the following year. An article in the Atlantic spells it out clearly.

“Executions in Texas, the most prolific death-penalty state in the country, spiked after Congress restricted federal appeals in death-penalty cases with the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act in 1996.”

There are other factors at play in the decline of death penalty cases, as the Atlantic points out. The Supreme Court banned the executions of mentally ill inmates in 2002. In 2005, the highest court in the land barred executions for inmates who committed the crime they were convicted of while being under 18, as it violated the eighth amendment. And in 2008, they outlawed executions for any other crime but first degree murder. With legal jurisprudence hindering states from carrying out its executions, only those inmates that “qualify” can be put to death.

After a federal judge ruled that California’s death penalty was unconstitutional, as originally reported in the Inquisitr, the death penalty has come under even more scrutiny. Even with the recent Gallup polls’ numbers, Americans seem to be divided on the death penalty as a means of punishment. Thirty-two states still have the death penalty, and 18 have bowed out, with Maryland being the last to do so in 2013. The fiscal costs associated with the death penalty far outnumber the costs of life in prison. Automatic appeals tie up the courts and most sentences aren’t carried out for decades after final sentencing. Those costs matter in states that are operating in the red. Finances could be the deciding factor that halts the death penalty in America.

The fact that Texas, of all states, is slowing down in the number of executions could very well point to a future where death penalty cases are phased out completely. Recent legislation, coupled with public sentiment, has shined a very bright light on the dark act of execution. And the age of the death penalty could very well be coming to an end.

Do you think we should still execute our criminals? Could we see the death penalty outlawed across the country? Sound off in the comments below.

[Images courtesy of Google]