Texas Criminal Justice System Pros And Cons

Maya Young

29 November 2017

Wrongful convictions, flawed evidence procedures, and the death penalty all can compromise the Texas criminal justice system.

The United States has the largest prison population in the world. The South is imprisoning more people and at a higher rate and is executing more people. There's more people locked up in Texas than any other state, including California. There are more people in max lockdown, more people in for profit facilities, and more people executed than in any other state. The shocking part is that Texas is also different than Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas. These other 3 different states have always regarded by prison professionals and national policymakers, and majority of them still are

Once a person is executed, there is no possibility for any mistakes to be corrected after their heart stops beating. That's a problem for a the criminal justice system of Texas. When jurors convicted George Powell of a robbery that took place in Killeen, Texas in 2009 he knew that his case was not treated fairly. On this day a camera recorded the robber leaving a 7-Eleven, where he had put a handgun on the counter and told the cashier to give him all of the cash in the register, and some cigarettes. After the robbery took place, and the police showed up to the scene, the cashier told the officer that the robber had been about 5’6 , but the clerk and a manager had already later testified that George, who is 6’3, was the robber. When a manager from a different store that was robbed 12 days before was put on the stand, she testified that she recognized George and that he was definitely not the one who robbed her. Now, both the video and the clerk’s testimony have been contradicted. George then admits that he lied for favor in his own case. Since they needed an experts opinion on the video, someone was hired by the TFSC had came to the conclusion that it is impossible that the man in the video was taller than 5’9. Till this day George Powell remains in jail serving 28 years. An appeals court will have to decide whether all this means he's innocent, or guilty. Since he's still alive any

New death sentences in Texas have dropped nearly 80% since 1999. Juries condemned 3 new individuals to death in Texas in 2016. Death sentences in 1999 when juries sent 48 people to death row. In 2015 and 2016, new death sentences fell to their lowest number since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ revised death penalty statute in 1976. In 2017, prosecutors sought death in 7 cases resulting in 4 new sentences. Over the last five years, 80% of death sentences have been imposed on people of color in Texas. More than 60% of these death sentences have been on African American defendants. While African Americans comprise less than 13% of the Texas population, they comprise 44% of death row inmates, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Hispanics comprise 26.7% and whites comprise 27.2% of the death row population. According to TDCJ, there are currently 232 Texas death row inmates, which includes 6 women. This remains the smallest Texas death row population since the late 1980s, according to research by