Texas Capital Punishment Laws

Capital punishment (the death penalty) has a long and controversial history in the U.S. Each state makes its own laws concerning the sentence. Most states, including Texas, allow capital punishment for the most serious crimes. Texas defines capital homicide as a murder involving specific circumstances or situations, including:

The victim is a peace officer or fireman killed while on duty;
The murder occurred while the defendant was committing (or attempting to commit) a kidnapping, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, or arson;
Murder "for hire" (both the hirer and the hired);
The murder occurred during the course of an actual or attempted prison break;
Multiple murders occurred as a result of the defendantâ€™s acts; and
The victim was younger than ten year old.

As with most other states, Texas uses lethal injection for its executions. Those under the age of 17 or lacking capacity (such as legal insanity) may not be executed in Texas.

The basics of capital punishment laws in Texas are highlighted in the table below. See FindLaw'sDeath Penaltysection for more related articles.

Code Section	Pen. 12.31, 19.03, 8.07; CCrP 37.071, 43.14
Is Capital Punishment Allowed?	Yes
Effect of Defendant's Incapacity	Exempt from execution
Minimum Age	17
Available for Crimes Other than Homicide?	-
Definition of Capital Homicide	Victim is peace officer or fireman in official duty; while committing/attempting to commit kidnapping, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault or arson; obstruction; retaliation; for remuneration or employs another; while escaping; incarcerated and victim is employee or inmate; murder more than one person during same criminal transaction or scheme or course of conduct; victim under 6 years
Method of Execution	Lethal injection

Note:State laws are constantly changing -- contact a Texas criminal defense attorney or conduct your own legal research to verify the state law(s) you are researching.

More Information

For additional information on Texas's death penalty laws, you can consult the links to related resources below. You can also read more about the topic in general by reading FindLawâ€™s section on the death penalty, which discusses topics such as: the history of capital punishment, federal capital punishment laws, death penalty statistics, and recent development relating to the death penalty. If you have more questions, you may want to consider speaking with a local criminal defense attorney.

Research the Law

Texas Law
Official State Codes- Links to the official online statutes (laws) in all 50 states and DC.

Texas Capital Punishment Laws: Related Resources

History of Death Penalty Laws
Texas First Degree Murder Laws
Criminal Law Center

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