"History of the Death Penalty in Texas"

TEXAS HISTORY ON
THE DEATH PENALTY

Texas Counties Used To Handle Prisoner Executions:
Texas executed its prisoners by hanging until 1924
when the electric chair was introduced.
By 1964 lethal injection became the most humane form of capital punishment.
Also, during the Civil War Texas used a firing squad 4 times.
The world watched via electronic media and in print as
Lawrence Russell Brewer paid with his life last month
for the brutal 1998 dragging death of James Byrd.
His criminal case is one for the history books,
if only because of the Texas and national hate
crime legislation that bears Byrd's name.
But most Southeast Texas killers who paid the ultimate price
for their crimes have been all but forgotten,
their cases summed up as desperate men whose
violent lives finally led them down that last,
long walk to the scaffold,
electric chair or gurney.
Jack Bunch was, apparently,
the 1st man to be sentenced
to death in Jefferson County.
Details are sketchy in Enterprise archive accounts,
but Beaumont old-timers said Bunch was hanged in
the courthouse square in 1855 before a large crowd
that had gathered to witness the execution.
One of those witnesses was pioneering
Beaumont resident Martin Hebert,
whose father took him to the public
hanging, along with his brother,
as a punishment to the boys for
having quarreled.
"He wanted us to see what happened to 'bad boys,'"
Hebert would later say.
Sheriff James Engels
(or possibly Ingalls - different spellings
are given in separate stories)
had set up a scaffold with a heavy pole
between 2 black gum trees.
A long ladder and a rope were the only other implements needed.
Bunch was hanged for the murder of a man whose
body he then threw into the Sabine River.
No further details were given in 2 brief mentions
of the event found in Enterprise archives.
The last public hanging in Jefferson County came to pass 48 years later.
"Spectators came by the thousands from far and wide
to witness Jefferson County's last public hanging staged
in the old jail yard at the corner of Pearl and Franklin
in 1903," according to a 1955 Enterprise archive story.
"Willie Green was the ill-fated 'star' of the occasion,
and the trap was sprung by Sheriff Ras Landry."
The brief article doesn't mention Green's crime.
Hanging continued to be the state's method of execution until 1923,
but whether Jefferson County didn't- or did - hang anyone, or didn't
do it publicly during those two decades, wasn't mentioned either.
The state took over the final penalty in capital crimes in 1923.
The latest technology, the electric chair (dubbed "Old Sparky") was used for
many years until it was finally decided that lethal injection was more humane.
"Back 'in the good old days' Texas did away with highly undesirable persons
with dispatch and without all the fuss, furor, hoopla delays and protests,"
according to a 1984 Enterprise archive article headlined "No one clamored
to see death."
"It was usually only a matter of a few months
between the time the guilty
stood before the judge and heard the
death sentence and the time "Old Sparky"
snuffed out his life up in Huntsville,"
the delicately worded article went on to say.
4 of the first 5 Texans to end
their lives in Old Sparky's
embrace were Southeast Texans,
according to the Texas Department
of Criminal Justice death row website.
Mack Matthews, 39, of Tyler County; George Washington, 39,
of Newton County; and Melvin Johnson, 20, and Ewell Morris, 23,
both of Liberty County; along with Red River County resident
Charles Reynolds, all were executed February 8, 1924, in the
electric chair's debut.
Newt DeSliva was the 1st Jefferson County resident
sent to Texas's death row, but his sentence was commuted
to life in prison March 8, 1925.
The 1st Jefferson County resident to die in the electric chair
was 38-year-old Raney Williams on Aug. 8, 1930.
The last Jefferson County resident to meet that fate was
Morton Abbey, 32, whose appointment with Old Sparky came
on Dec. 8, 1951.
On June 29, 1972, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital
punishment to be "cruel and unusual," Texas Death Row housed 45 men,
whose sentences were commuted to life in prison, clearing death row
by March 1973.
By the end of that year, a revised Texas Penal Code once again
permitted the death penalty, allowing executions to resume
effective Jan. 1, 1974.
The 1st man sentenced to death committed suicide by hanging and
it wasn't until Dec. 7, 1982, that offender Charlie Brooks of
Tarrant County was executed.
He was also the 1st to die by lethal injection,
a method adopted by Texas in 1977.
Jefferson County resident James Autry, 29,
followed him March 14, 1984.
Autry was sentenced to die after shooting a convenience store clerk
to death after an argument about the price of a 6-pack of beer on April 20,
1980. He then shot 2 witnesses, a former Catholic priest and a Greek sailor.
The priest died and the sailor was severely injured, according to
the Texas death row website.
(source: Beaumont Entrprise)

THE CART WAR OAK:
Hanging was means of execution in Texas between 1819 and 1923.
In the 19th Century "death by hanging" usually meant within the same hour the verdict was read.
The tree had been employed as a hanging tree before the Cart War, but this was the name that stuck.
Under this tree in 1857, trials were held and men were hanged for the murder of Mexican freighters or cartmen.
No exact number is immediately available but it was more than a few.
Considering the brief six-month period, the number might be regarded as large.

[Hanging Tree - Goliad, Texas]

HUNTSVILLE UNIT:
Death row was located in the East Building of the Huntsville Unit from 1928 to 1952.
From 1952 until 1965, the electric chair was located in a building by the East Wall of the Huntsville Unit.
The men on death row were moved from the Huntsville Unit to the Ellis Unit in 1965.
All executions are still held at the Huntsville Unit.
AKA - 'The Walls Unit'.

Death row remained at the Ellis Unit until 1999.

In 1999, the TDCJ moved death row to the Polunsky Unit.
The Polunsky Unit houses death row offenders separately in single-person
cells measuring 60 square feet, with each cell having a window.
Death row offenders are also recreated individually.
Offenders on death row receive a regular diet,
have access to reading, writing, and legal materials.
Depending upon their custody level,
some death row offenders are allowed to have a radio.

The women on death row are housed at the Mountain View Unit.

Offenders on death row do not have regular TDCJ-ID numbers,
but have special death row numbers.
The numbers usually start with 999 and end with 3 numbers.

Old Sparky, infamous Texas Exit Chair for 361 Death Row Inmates.
OLD SPARKY:
The State of Texas authorized the use of the electric chair in 1923,
and ordered all executions to be carried out by the State in Huntsville.
Prior to 1923, Texas counties were responsible for their own executions.
The State of Texas executed the first offender by electrocution on 2/8/1924.
Charles Reynolds from Red River County was executed.
On that same date, four additional offenders,
Ewell Morris, George Washington, Mack Matthews,
and Melvin Johnson were executed.
State of Texas executed brothers on six occasions:
* Frank & Lorenzo Noel electrocuted 7/3/1925;
* S.A. & Forest Robins electrocuted 4/6/1926;
* Oscar & Mack Brown electrocuted 7/1/1936;
* Roscoe & Henderson Brown electrocuted 5/6/1938;
* Curtis 7/1/1993 & Danny 7/30/1993 Harris (both by lethal injection);
* Jessie 9/16/1994 & Jose 11/18/1999 Gutierrez (both by lethal injection).
One of the most notorious offenders to be executed was Raymond Hamilton,
member of the "Bonnie and Clyde" gang.
He was sentenced from Walker County and executed on May 10, 1935, for murder.
Hamilton and another man had escaped from death row,
only to be captured and return to death row.
The State of Texas executed the last offender by electrocution on 7/30/1964.
Joseph Johnson from Harris County was executed.
A total of 361 inmates were electrocuted in the State of Texas.

CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT:
When capital punishment was declared "cruel and unusual punishment" by the U.S.
Supreme Court on June 29, 1972,
there were 45 men on death row in Texas and
7 in county jails with a death sentence.
All of the sentences were commuted to life sentences by the Governor of Texas,
and death row was clear by March 1973.
In 1973, revision to the Texas Penal Code once again
allowed assessment of the death penalty and allowed for
executions to resume effective 1/1/1974.
Under the new statute, the first man (#507 John Devries)
was placed on death row on 2/15/1974.
Devries committed suicide 7/1/1974 by hanging himself with bed sheets.

LETHAL INJECTION:
The State of Texas adopted lethal injection
as means of execution in 1977.
The State of Texas executed the first offender by
lethal injection on 12/7/1982.
Charlie Brooks of Tarrant County was executed for
the kidnap/murder of a Fort Worth auto mechanic.

Effective January 12, 1996, close relatives and friends of
the deceased victim were allowed to witness executions.

TEXAS CAPITAL OFFENSES:
The following crimes are Capital Murder in Texas:
* Murder of a public safety officer or firefighter;
* Murder during the commission of kidnapping,
burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault,
arson, or obstruction or retaliation;
* Murder for remuneration;
* Murder during prison escape;
* Murder of a correctional employee;
* Murder by a state prison inmate who is serving
a life sentence for any of five offenses
(murder, capital murder, aggravated kidnapping,
aggravated sexual assault, or aggravated robbery);
* Multiple murders;
* Murder of an individual under six years of age.

United States Capital Punishment:
As of December 31,1999, the death penalty was authorized
by 38 states and the Federal Government.
Texas leads nation in the number of executions since
death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
Texas, California, and Florida have the largest death row populations.
3,254 offenders were under sentence of death in the
United States as of December 31, 2005.
There are five methods of execution in the United States:
lethal injection,
electrocution,
lethal gas,
hanging,
and firing squad.
Jurisdictions without death penalty statutes:
Alaska,
District of Columbia,
Hawaii,
Iowa,
Maine,
Massachusetts,
Michigan,
Minnesota,
North Dakota,
Rhode Island,
Vermont,
West Virginia,
Wisconsin.
Lethal Injection Consists Of:
* Sodium Thiopental (lethal dose - sedates person)
* Pancuronium Bromide (muscle relaxant-collapses diaphragm and lungs)
* Potassium Chloride (stops heart beat)
* The offender is usually pronounced dead approximately
7 minutes after the lethal injection begins.
TEXAS DEATH ROW FACTS:
Cost per execution for drugs used:
$86.08
Average Time on Death Row prior to Execution:
10.26 years
Shortest Time on Death Row prior to Execution:
248 days
Longest Time on Death Row prior to Execution:
24 years
Average Age of Executed Offenders:
39
Youngest at Time of Execution:
24
Oldest at Time of Execution:
66
[Source: TDCJ Death Row Facts]