An anthropologist, Henry Lundsgaarde, provides excepts from his study of the legal and moral justifications for homicide in Texas in this chapter. He argues how moral codes can sometimes justify the means of committing a homicide. In his study in “Space City”, shows the correlation between law and custom in the act of homicide. The Texas penal code was used as reference of such crimes and how they were judged in courts of law. In the state of Texas, the homicide rate and executions are the highest in the United States. In Texas, homicide is recognized as a criminal behavior only if the act of killing is noted as unlawful. The first Texas Penal code was enacted in 1856, and has survived 117 years without substantial change.

In Texas the Penal