Death Row In Texas Research Articles

Racial dynamics underlying crime commission, emotionality, and last statements among executed offenders in Texas

We consider here whether African-Americans executed on death row in Texas are consequently (a) more likely to have committed economically-motivated secondary crimes during the commission of homicide/attempted homicide, and whether these inmates were (b) less likely to express being sorry in their final statements before execution. Our study revealed support for the following hypothesized patterns: Caucasian offenders used a greater number of sorry-related words in their last statements, on average, compared with African-American offenders. In addition, homicides/attempted homicides committed by African-Americans were significantly more likely to have included a secondary economically-motivated crime (e.g., robbery). Subsequent analyses revealed that offender race significantly mediated the effects of economic secondary crime commission and “emotional intensity” on expressed sorrow in final statements.

A Focused Review of Language Use Preceding Death by Execution.

Executions are one form of death that can be assumed to be maximally anxiety provoking. Words spoken by death row inmates moments before their execution can provide valuable insights into people's end-of-life communication needs and themes, conveying what individuals choose to express to others in the face of imminent death. In this focused review, we describe findings from quantitative and qualitative text analysis studies that have analyzed affective experiences and meaning-making attempts in transcriptions of actual statements made by Texas death row inmates. Overall, the most prevalent content themes identified in these final acts of verbal communication in the reviewed studies consisted of a strong predominance of emotional positivity, messages to relevant social others, and spiritual references. We subsequently view the reviewed findings in the light of additional research in which people's conceptions of death and dying were explored and language studies in which people's communication before other forms of death was analyzed. Finally, we describe open questions and directions for future analyses of death row inmates' final statements, and we outline practical implications.

Analysis of last statements prior to execution: methods, themes and future directions.

Worldwide, over 1000 people were executed in 2016 and over 3000 sentenced to death. Death row prisoners have high rates of mental illness, often combined with neurological impairment. Prolonged confinement has further negative effects on psychological function. There is a growing literature examining key themes and psychological constructs in death row prisoners immediately prior to execution. To date, this literature centres largely but not exclusively on last statements from death row in Texas, owing to ease of availability. The most common themes in last statements are love, spirituality and apology or regret. The most common psychological constructs are 'identification-egression' (e.g. attachment to a lost person or ideal, such as freedom), unbearable psychological pain and rejection-aggression. This is still a relatively new area of research and new techniques, such as computerised quantitative text analysis, are likely to complement rather than replace more traditional forms of thematic and textual analysis. For the future, it is essential that studies in this field continue to specify precisely, which last statements they use, so that overlap can be identified, and that more countries are studied (if possible). It would also be useful to expand the research frame to relate the content of last statements to additional variables relating to prisoners' offences, physical health, mental health, family structure and broader circumstances. Finally, ethical issues require continued consideration in this complex, fascinating, growing field.

Ethnic Differences in the Statements Made by Inmates About to be Executed in Texas

The last statements prior to execution of 331 inmates on the Texas death row from 1982 to 2009 were examined using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count computer program. African Americans and Hispanic Americans had more words related to positive emotions and feelings than did Euro-Americans, whereas Hispanic Americans had more words related to religion. The similarities in their last statements outweighed the differences.

With God on One's Side: The Social Geometry of Death Row Apologies

Apology is an increasingly prominent form of conflict management in many areas of social life. Yet there are few systematic studies of apology as a dependent variable. Analyzing the last statements of Texas death row prisoners, we find that the best predictor of apology is affiliation with God. Under traditional Western conceptions, God is an actor endowed with extraordinarily high status. Drawing on the theoretical paradigm known as pure sociology, we argue that death row prisoners who invoke God as a third party in their conflict thereby elevate their own status. Greater vertical closeness to the victim's side generates more social assertiveness and a greater willingness to apologize publicly. In addition, affiliation increases prisoners' relational closeness to God, enhancing their probability of adopting God's modern message of reconciliation. God's status has, however, declined somewhat over the past several centuries—a trend that helps to explain the modern religious emphasis on reconciliation over punishment, apology over defiance.

The Need for a Public Defenders Office in Harris County

The right to counsel is a secured promise embedded in the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This promise ensures that everyone, rich or poor, has an equal standing before the law. The purpose of this paper is to address the need to maintain this secured promise to indigent defendants by providing for effective representation by competent attorneys. The United States leads the world in prison population with 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.) The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The State of Texas confines more of its citizens to prison than any other state in America. More of those incarcerated in Texas, come from Harris County than any other county in the state. Of the 3,254 offenders who were under sentence of death in the United States as of December 31, 2005, Today about 1000 persons sit on death row in Texas which leads the nation in the number of executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Of the persons on Texas death row, 285 or 28.5% of them were sent there by Harris County courts. This paper determines that indigent defendants in Harris County, Texas, are often inadequately represented through its court-appointed system for indigent defense and suggests the county establish a public defender program in order to meet its constitutional mandate.

Apology and Remorse in the Last Statements of Death Row Prisoners

The role of apology is beginning to receive attention from within the criminal justice system. Research suggests that both victims and offenders can benefit when the offender offers an apology and shows remorse. Less is known, however, about the frequency with which offenders apologize and the content of their apologies. In this study we conducted an exploratory analysis of remorse‐related content in the last statements of inmates on death row in Texas between December 7, 1982 and August 31, 2007. Almost one‐third of the offenders offered an apology, most of which were directed toward the victim’s family. In addition, these apologies were linked with other indications of remorse and sincerity, such as asking for forgiveness and showing empathy. Logistic regression analyses showed that apology was reliably predicted by these remorse‐related variables, but not by demographic variables or variables related to the crime itself. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Predicting Institutional Violence among Death Row Inmates: The Utility of the Sorensen and Pilgrim Model

The (Sorensen and Pilgrim, An actuarial risk assessment of violence posed by capital murder defendants. J Crim Law Criminol 90:1251–1270, 2000) actuarial model was developed to predict institutional violence among life-sentenced murderers. However, despite its presentation at capital sentencing, the model has not been validated on death row inmates specifically. This study examined the association between Sorensen and Pilgrim model scores and five types of institutional violence (serious assaults, minor assaults, verbal assault/threats, prison order offenses, and non-violent infractions) among a sample of 155 individuals who had been incarcerated on death row in Texas. Results revealed that risk scores performed better for non-violent infractions than for serious assaults, calling into question the utility of this measure for capital sentencing evaluations.

Dealing with the inevitable: strategies of self-presentation and meaning construction in the final statements of inmates on Texas death row

Last statements of death row inmates represent a genre of discourse characterized by an acute situation in which to express final reflections. This article describes how Texas death row inmates give meaning to their situation by examining their last statements. Between December 1982 and November 2006, 379 offenders were executed on the Texas death row. Through the inspection of 283 last statements made available on the Texas Department of Criminal Justice website, we identify strategies of self-presentation. In a first stage, we build a textual framework that uncovers a sequential structuring of what these individuals chose to express. Using this framework, the second stage analyzes the individual texts on a micro-level. Depending on the content of the statements, e.g. accepting or denying guilt, we identify key patterns of how inmates attach meaning to their situation and what they choose to express.

Texas Death Row and the Cummins Prison Farm in Arkansas

Texas Death Row and the Cummins Prison Farm in Arkansas