Texas is ranked in the worst 10 states on property taxes, worst 20 in violent crime, the bottom half on education, and doesn’t even make the top 20 in the freedom index. However, there’s one area in which we consistently rank #1: The number of prisoners we execute. Since 1976, we’ve killed more prisoners than the next five states combined. This year, the state of Texas has scheduled nine more executions, putting us in a prime position to once again take the top spot in this grim category.
In our zeal to kill so many people, we also have the highest frequency of cases where it seems apparent that the person put to death was innocent. The Death Penalty Information Center has a list of executions with strong evidence of innocence, and half of those apparent miscarriages of justice were here in Texas. These cases alone, in which we have good reason to think the decisions were wrong, constitute nearly 2% of all executions off the top. These do not include the majority of those tainted by procedural issues, violations of rights, prosecutorial misconduct, or other technicalities that keep justice from being served cleanly.
The death penalty does not deter violent crime. Of the six states that executed prisoners last year, half are on the top ten list of worst for violent crime, and only one is not in the top twenty. As Amnesty International reports, this has always been the case, with murder consistently being more common in states with the death penalty. Unsurprisingly, 88% of criminologists say definitively that the death penalty fails to lower homicide rates.
Well, at least it must be cheaper for taxpayers to not have to spring for lifelong imprisonment, right? Wrong. Study after study from the ‘70s through the 2000s found that it’s more expensive to execute a prisoner than to incarcerate them for life.
With the death penalty taxpayers pay more, for higher crime, to frequently execute innocent people. That’s a losing position all around.
The Libertarian Party of Texas opposes the death penalty as a form of punishment by the state, as well as any other unnecessary use of force by state agents in response to criminal action.
As the Party of Principle advocating for a government that protects individual rights, we recognize that when the government kills someone – whether on the streets or in an execution chamber – it is the ultimate, irreversible violation of that person’s rights. If the government damages your property, shuts down your speech, or throws you in jail unjustly, you at least have the chance of being made whole later. But the death penalty means justice will never be served.
Texas courts make a mockery of justice by condemning innocent people to death in broad daylight. It’s long past time to join the vast majority of states and kill the death penalty.
We call on Texas state legislators to enact legislation to end the death penalty this session. Meanwhile, we call on the Governor to immediately halt the current injustice by commuting all death sentences to life imprisonment, as he did in 2018 for Thomas Whitaker.
Our candidates will continue to give voters a choice to end the death penalty across Texas, and our legislative team will continue lobbying in Austin to change the law. You can find out more and contribute at LPTexas.org, and if you’re part of one of the many groups working on this issue, please reach out to us at coalitions@lptexas.org.
Together we can achieve a Texas set free from the death penalty in our lifetime.
