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Death Row in Texas

The State of Texas has executed 1,021 men since 1923.

This is an analysis on the 515 of those men executed from 1984 to date.

The idea for this analysis was inspired by a post on Hacker News. I initially set out to do some sentiment analysis on the last statements - something I'm still planning on doing - but in the end the page ended up being a bit of a mish-mash of data and charts.

I plan on revisiting sentiment analysis stuff in the near future, as well as adding data from the US census API. Suggestions for ideas or a sentiment analysis API would be much appreciated (contact details in the footer).

By Race

Prisoners executed to date (1984-2014)

Texas race demographics

Race Total pop. Executed Total pop. executed
White 11,397,345 (45.3%) 231 (44.9%) 00.002027%
Black 2,886,825 (11.5%) 189 (36.8%) 00.006547%
Hispanic 9,460,921 (37.6%) 92 (17.9%) 00.000972%
Other 1,400,470 (5.6%) 2 (0.4%) 00.000143%

Race of Executed

BlackBlackTarrantHispanicOtherRaceWhite36.6%44.8%17.8%
ExecutedRace
Black189
Black Tarrant1
Hispanic92
Other2
Race1
White231

Last statements

The act I committed to put me here was not just heinous, it was senseless. But the person that committed that act is no longer here - I am. I'm not going to struggle physically against any restraints. I'm not going to shout, use profanity or make idle threats. Understand though that I'm not only upset, but I'm saddened by what is happening here tonight. I'm not only saddened, but disappointed that a system that is supposed to protect and uphold what is just and right can be so much like me when I made the same shameful mistake.

First of all; Shonna talk to your brother. He'll tell you the truth about what happened to your husband. I told Bubba to tell you what happened. Now, my statement to the world: I am in the midst of truth. I am good, I am straight, don't trip. To all my partners, tell them I said like Arnold Schwarzenegger, "I'll be back." These eyes will close, but they will be opened again, my understanding of God is, Jesus has got me through. To my family, I love ya'll.

I hereby declare, Robert Steven Everett and Nicholas Velasquez, guilty of crimes against me, Douglas Alan Feldman. Either by fact or by proxy, I find them both guilty. I hereby sentence both of them to death, which I carried out in August 1998. As of that time, the State of Texas has been holding me illegally in confinement and by force for 15 years. I hereby protest my pending execution and demand immediate relief.

Executions over time

1984-2014

Number of executions per year197019841986198819901992199419961998200020022004200620082010201220140510152025303540YearNumber of executions
YearExecutions
19701
19821
19843
19856
198610
19876
19883
19894
19904
19915
199212
199317
199414
199519
19963
199737
199820
199935
200040
200117
200233
200324
200423
200519
200624
200726
200818
200924
201017
201113
201215
201316
20147

Executions grouped by month

Month of executionJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec30354045505560MonthExecutions
MonthExecutions
Jan52
Feb40
Mar43
Apr37
May56
Jun54
Jul31
Aug50
Sep43
Oct33
Nov46
Dec31

Number of executions by County

 

1121

In addition to the 515 prisoners executed in the last 28 years, as of June 2014 there are 7 scheduled executions and 275 prisoners on death row.

10.74

Avg no. years on death row prior to execution

252

Shortest time on death row prior to execution

11,575

Longest time on death row prior to execution (31 years)

39

Average age of executed offenders

24

Youngest prisoner to be executed

66

Oldest prisoner to be executed

About

I decided to create this page after seeing someone post a link to the Texas department of criminal justice website. Data analysis and visualisation is something that has always interested me, so it made sense to give it a go with this dataset. All data scraped is available as an SQL dump here.


Improving this page:

I'd love to hear suggestions and improvements if you can think of any. Some things I may add at some point in the future:

  • Sentiment analysis on the last statements (can be an issue as the majority of the last statement are scanned in, not digital)
  • County population vs number of executed (via US census API: http://www.census.gov/developers/)
  • Number of arrests (not sure if data available?)
  • Compare vs other states