Jennings was put to death Wednesday for the 1988 murder of Elston Howard. The long sentence was complicated by constantly evolving death penalty laws.
Texas death row
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Criminal Justice
Texas court stops first execution of 2019, citing changes in intellectual disability law and bite-mark science
Blaine Milam was convicted in the 2008 East Texas death of his girlfriend’s 13-month-old baby.
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Guides
What does race have to do with the death penalty in Texas?
More than 72 percent of those on death row in Texas are people of color. Studies show race plays a role in the state’s harshest punishment.
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Criminal Justice
Texas sees uptick in executions, death sentences in 2018
The state put to death 13 men this year. That’s more than half the total number of people executed in the entire country: 25. Still, the death row population — both here and nationwide — is at a historic low.
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Criminal Justice
Convicted murderer Alvin Braziel executed for killing Mesquite man and raping his wife
Braziel’s attorneys failed to secure a delay in the execution after last-minute argument that prosecutorial conduct tainted his trail. He was the 13th and final inmate Texas put to death this year.
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Criminal Justice
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturns death sentence for inmate Kenneth Wayne Thomas
Thomas’ conviction stands, but he is entitled to a new punishment hearing based on modern standards for assessing intellectual disabilities, the court ruled.
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Criminal Justice
Report: Houston-based pharmacy is supplier of state’s execution drugs
Greenpark Compounding Pharmacy has been selling Texas drugs for lethal injections for three and a half years, according to a BuzzFeed News report.
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Criminal Justice
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rules against death row inmate Jeff Wood
The court denied relief on Wednesday to Wood, who never killed anyone, granting the state the opportunity to set another execution date for the 1996 murder of a store clerk in Kerrville.
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Criminal Justice
Texas executes Robert Moreno Ramos, amid pleas for case review
Lawyers for Ramos had argued that he wasn’t aware of his rights under an international treaty, and therefore didn’t receive proper legal counsel during his trial and sentencing.
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Criminal Justice
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grants new trial for death row inmate Albert James Turner
The court threw out Turner’s conviction because his defense attorneys said at trial that he had committed murder, even though Turner wanted to maintain his innocence.
