A Texas state lawmaker has introduced legislation to eliminate the death penalty in the state amid a high-profile death row case currently unfolding.
Democrat state Rep. John Bucy III filed the bill for the upcoming legislative session.
“I think I’ve been opposed to the death penalty my whole life as I’ve thought about its use, and should it exist in our society,” Bucy said, according to Fox 7.
“Financially, if you just want to look at it economically, we spend more money to execute than to keep someone in prison, so it’s really a lose-lose situation with a high risk stake if we get it wrong,” he continued.
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Photo shows the gurney in the execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)
This comes after the Texas Supreme Court cleared the way last week for the state to schedule a new execution date for inmate Robert Roberson, whose initial execution was delayed last month.
Roberson is currently on death row over his conviction in which prosecutors say he killed his two-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, by shaking her to death, known as shaken baby syndrome. But his lawyers say Nikki actually died from other health issues such as pneumonia and that new evidence proves his innocence. His lawyers also said doctors had failed to rule out these other medical explanations for the child’s symptoms.
Roberson was scheduled to be put to death on Oct. 17 before the state Supreme Court issued a stay to delay his execution shortly before it was set to take place.
If he is put to death, he would be the first person in the U.S. to be executed in a case based on shaken baby syndrome.
More than 80 Texas state lawmakers, as well as the detective who helped the prosecution, medical experts, parental rights groups, human rights groups, bestselling novelist John Grisham and other advocates have called for the state to grant Roberson clemency over the belief that he is innocent. A group of state lawmakers have also visited Roberson in prison to encourage him.
“I feel like I’ve gotten more engaged with this Robert Roberson case and wanted to make sure that we’re continuing this conversation about the lack of humanity tied to the death penalty,” Bucy said.
Texas lawmakers meet with Robert Roberson at a prison in Livingston, Texas, Sept. 27, 2024. (Criminal Justice Reform Caucus via AP)
Texas has executed nearly 600 people since 1982, according to Texas Coalition to Abolish The Death Penalty executive director Kristin Houle Cuellar.
“Which is far more than any other state in the nation,” Houle Cuellar told Fox 7. “We have quite a reputation when it comes to the use of the death penalty in Texas.”
Houle Cuellar said that there have been fewer death sentences in the state in the last decade, which she partially attributes to the introduction in 2005 of life without parole.
“Prosecutors have used that discretion in opting not to seek the death penalty,” Houle Cuellar said. “Even in about 30 percent of the cases that they’ve taken to trial where they’ve sought the death penalty, jurors have rejected it.”
Houle Cuellar said that Harris, Dallas, Tarrant and Bexar counties lead the state in death sentences and more than half of all Texas counties have never issued a death sentence.
Since 2007, multiple Texas lawmakers have unsuccessfully sought to abolish the death penalty. But Bucy says there is now enough momentum regarding the issue to reintroduce legislation to eliminate the practice.
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The execution bed sits empty on Death Row on April 25, 1997 at Texas Death Row in Huntsville, Texas. (Getty Images)
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“While it’s an uphill battle to end the death penalty in Texas, we’ve seen the number of executions go down,” he said. “I think sentiment is changing, and I also think as we see these specific cases come to life, and we start learning the specific stories, people are going to get more and more concerned about the possibility of getting it wrong.”
State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt and state Rep. Joe Moody, both Democrats, have filed similar bills to abolish the death penalty, which will need to be voted on by fellow lawmakers when the legislative session begins early next year.
In another Texas death row case, a judge found last month that Melissa Lucio was innocent in the 2007 death of her two-year-old daughter, Mariah. Senior State District Judge Arturo Nelson recommended that Lucio’s conviction and death sentence be overturned. The judge also found that prosecutors suppressed evidence and testimony, including statements from Lucio’s other children, that could support the claim that she was not abusive and that Mariah’s death was accidental from falling down the stairs.