Last week, the Lone Star State concluded a record-breaking gap in executions, reports The Houston Press.
Before last Wednesday, the State of Texas had gone six months without putting anyone to death. That’s the longest stretch without an execution since 2008. Back then, a moratorium had been called while the U.S. Supreme Court considered the legality of lethal injections.
It’s now been 40 years since SCOTUS reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Kathryn Kase is Executive Director for the Texas Defender Service. She has pointed to several death-penalty cases in which serious questions remain about whether the punishment is appropriate. Kase said there seems to be greater and greater questioning of capital punishment in Texas. “I just get this increasing sense that this is hitting people, at all levels,” she said.
