Tag Archives: Death Penalty
Death Penalty Reform Bill Gets Watered Down to ‘Nothing’ Before Passing Senate
After passing the House, HB 1139, meant to reform how Texas decides whether a defendant is too intellectually disabled to execute, was significantly softened in Senate committee.
A House bill meant to reform Texas’ death penalty procedures for intellectually disabled defendants was amended in the Senate to the point that criminal justi...Read More
The Dissenter
Texas’ highest criminal court turned Elsa Alcala into one of the state’s most prominent death penalty critics.
Elsa Alcala began her legal career in the Harris County DA’s office, joining a prosecutorial machine famous for cranking out death sentences. Three decades la...Read More
A New Crime Novel Asks Tough Questions About Revenge and Redemption
Texas Innocence Network founder David Dow’s first foray into fiction explores the trauma of a wrongful conviction.
Prison may be society’s most blatant example of a backfire mission — achieving the opposite of its rehabilitative intent. Very few who are incarcerated come...Read More
The Tattooed Star of the ‘Progressive Prosecutor’ Movement Braces for His First Death Penalty Trial
Mark Gonzalez wants a jury to help him decide whether Nueces County should keep sending people to death row.
In mid-January 2017, a couple of days after Mark Gonzalez was sworn in as Nueces County’s new district attorney, a deputy prosecutor approached him to ask how...Read More
State-Sanctioned Secrecy Shields Texas’ Death Penalty Machine from Scrutiny
New revelations about the source of Texas’ execution drugs underscore the risks of capital punishment shrouded in secrecy.
Shortly before he died by lethal injection earlier this year, Anthony Shore, Houston’s infamous “tourniquet killer,” exclaimed that he felt a burning sens...Read More
Ken Paxton’s Strange Quest to Execute an Intellectually Disabled Man
Prosecutors have agreed to spare Bobby Moore’s life due to his intellectual disability. Texas’ highest criminal court and top legal official want to kill him anyway.
As a teenager, Bobby Moore couldn’t tell time. Before dropping out of school in the ninth grade, he was so far behind his peers that teachers told him to draw...Read More
Who Gets Mercy on Death Row? Chris Young’s Execution Raises Questions of Racial Bias
The clemency process is a black box — one where hearings are rarely held and decisions are never really explained, making it nearly impossible to prove bias.
Secrecy is a hallmark of the death penalty in Texas, where the state masks the identities of executioners and shields critical details about its controversial l...Read More
Meet Nueces County’s New DA, a Self-Professed ‘Mexican Biker Lawyer Covered in Tattoos’
Mark Gonzalez is listed as a gang member in police databases, has "not guilty" tattooed on his chest and is hoping to bring reform to Corpus Christi.
Early this year, border agents ran a name-check and wound up briefly detaining Mark Gonzalez as he traveled home to Corpus Christi after a vacation in Mexico. T...Read More
The Interview: Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg
For the first time in nearly four decades, Harris County’s district attorney is a Democrat, and she has high aspirations.
Upon taking office in January, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg cleaned house, replacing dozens of prosecutors hired by her predecessor. Ogg made good on...Read More