AUSTIN, Texas - While the use of capital punishment is declining, Texas still relies on it more than any other state - and implements it haphazardly, according to a report released today.

Striking variations exist between counties about how often prosecutors seek the death penalty, says report author Kristin Houlé, executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. For example, in the past year, more than half the state's new death sentences were handed down in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. By contrast, there were no new death sentences in Houston.

"It really is subject to the discretion of individual prosecutors. Cases with individuals with comparable backgrounds - or who raised similar legal arguments - received vastly different treatment in the criminal justice system."

National surveys show support for the death penalty on the decline. It's now about 60 percent, down from a high of 80 percent. But support drops below 50 percent when alternatives, such as life sentences without parole, are included in polls.

Slowly but surely, Houlé thinks, the death penalty is on its way out because of a growing sense that the system is unfair and makes mistakes. The report says defendants with intellectual disabilities and people of color are more likely to receive death sentences in Texas.

So far this year, nine new death sentences have been handed down in Texas, a 75 percent decline from a decade ago. Texas also carried out 15 executions, three times more than any other state.

Houlé cites a practical reason that some jurisdictions are becoming less enthusiastic about pursuing capital punishment. With chronically strained county budgets, she says, the issue of cost is more relevant than ever.

"We see a vast difference between trials in which prosecutors seek the death penalty and those in which they don't - almost a three-times difference. It should give those who support the death penalty pause, considering the gross expense of the death penalty."

This year, Connecticut became the fifth state to reject capital punishment, and campaigns are planned in several other states next year. State Rep. Jessica Farrar, D-Houston, is expected to introduce abolishment legislation for Texas soon, but it will likely be a symbolic effort; she's filed similar bills every session since 2007.

The report is online at tcadp.org.


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Illinois could soon be the fourth state to pass a law to prevent unfair youth sentencing.

The legislation encourages criminal courts to recognize youth who are convicted for acts of self-defense or as victims of violence.

Often, young survivors of sexual assault, sex trafficking or domestic abuse are convicted in adult court and given long prison sentences.

Madeleine Behr - policy director at the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation - said the bill would allow judges in these cases to review mitigating information, and give them more discretion to not sentence using mandatory minimums.

"It's just really important to keep in mind how trauma impacts kids as they're growing up, and throughout their young adulthood and really, the neurobiology of trauma with that," said Behr. "The ability for judges to say, 'I can move the child's case back to juvenile court for sentencing,' it gives the judges more options."

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Lilian Jiménez - D-Chicago - has passed in both House and Senate.

More than 32,000 people in U.S. prisons today have been there since childhood, according to a report by Human Rights for Kids - which ranks Illinois 11th among states for incarcerating minors in adult prisons.

Behr cited cases like those of Chrystul Kizer, Cyntoia Brown-Long, and Sara Kruzan as reasons for the changes outlined in the bill. Gov. JB Pritzker is expected to sign it into law - and Behr said it can't happen too soon.

"We often have a system that has mandatory minimums as kind-of arbitrary guidelines that really are focused on punishment and retribution, rather than healing and restoration," said Behr. "There are not a lot of cases specifically I've seen in Illinois that this law will impact, but I'm hoping that it's a preventative measure."

Some 24% of boys and 45% of girls in the juvenile justice system have experienced trauma through at least five Adverse Childhood Experiences, according to a report by the nonprofit Rights4Girls.




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The first people to make use of a new state law on sealing criminal records are set to go before a judge today.

Previously, only people whose conviction did not result in incarceration could petition for expungement.

Jay Jordan, CEO of the nonprofit Alliance for Safety and Justice, which pushed for the law, will ask a judge in Stockton to seal his decades-old robbery conviction, and added Senate Bill 731 will give people who have paid their dues a clean slate.

"If you have a conviction in the state of California, and it did result in a prison term, and you finished probation or parole and have been crime-free for two years, then you can petition the court for an expungement," Jordan outlined.

If your conviction did not lead to time behind bars, and you meet those same criteria, the State of California will now automatically expunge your record. Seven other people will also petition the court for expungement today. A felony conviction can be a big obstacle when people try to find a job, rent an apartment, adopt a child or even chaperone a school field trip.

A recent federal budget agreement included $95 million to help states expunge criminal records. Jordan emphasized it is in everyone's best interest to help formerly incarcerated people rebuild their lives.

"Upwards of 92% of people who have records have already served their time, are over the age of 35, and have been removed from the criminal justice system five to seven years," Jordan pointed out. "By all accounts, they are not recidivating. These are mothers, fathers. So expungement is public safety, it is economic development, and it's really about families."

Under the new law, sex offenders cannot apply for an expungement, and law enforcement, government, schools and agencies dealing with vulnerable populations can still see people's criminal records.

Kentucky incarcerated more than 32,000 people in 2022 in both local jails and state prisons, a 250% jump from the mid-1980s, according to a new website tracking mass incarceration in the Commonwealth.

Ashley Spalding, research director for the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, said those numbers don't include the thousands of Kentuckians being held in federal prisons, or who are locked into the criminal-justice system because they owe fines and fees.

"Kentucky criminalizes far too many low level of offenses including cannabis possession, criminal littering, public intoxication," she said. "There are lots of ways that people end up serving long sentences."

Black Kentuckians make up less than 9% of the state's population but 21% of the prison population. Since 2011, Kentucky lawmakers have enacted 76 measure increasing incarceration and only 14 reducing it, according to a Kentucky Center for Economic Policy analysis.

Amid the proposal to build a $500 million federal prison in Letcher County, Spalding said there isn't a track record of economic benefits, only harmful impacts on communities in the three other counties with federal prisons in eastern Kentucky.

"When we look at the three counties other than Letcher County that in Kentucky already have these prisons, we have not seen reductions in poverty," she said. "We have not seen the kinds of economic improvements that are often touted."

According to UnlockKY, Kentucky incarcerates 40% more people per capita than the U.S. average.