Capital Punishment: The State of the Death Penalty in Tarrant County and Texas

Two death penalty trials are currently underway in Tarrant County, marking the third time this year that prosecutors have pursued the death penalty.

This is particularly notable because, before this year, Tarrant County hasn’t had a death penalty trial since 2019. Death penalty trials have declined significantly statewide since 1999, when Texas juries sentenced 48 people to death. Having three such cases one year in a single county is unusual and puts Tarrant County on track to lead the state this year in death penalty prosecutions.

One of the trials this week involves a suspected serial killer; the other involves a man accused of robbing and killing a convenience store owner.

To be sure, seeking the death penalty is an enormous expense, particularly after changes in the law require the testing of all the evidence in a death penalty case – a change that came about after DNA and other scientific evidence led to exonerations.

In this article, our criminal defense attorneys examine the state of the death penalty in Tarrant County and Texas.

Death Sentences Drop Statewide

Statistics show the imposition of the death penalty has sharply declined in the Lone Star state over the past two decades. Death sentences in Texas have dropped more than 90 percent since 1999, when juries sent 48 defendants to Death Row. Death sentences have remained in the single digits for the past nine years.

Last year, Texas juries sent three new people to Death Row. And to date, in 2024, Texans have imposed three new death sentences – out of Hildago County, Johnson County, and Tarrant County. Of course, we could see that number go up, depending on the outcome of the two death penalty cases underway now in Tarrant County.

Despite this downward trend, counties continue to seek the death penalty at a significant cost to taxpayers. The Dallas Morning News estimated in 1992 that a death penalty case costs Texas $2.3 million, which translates into about $4.2 million today.

Here’s a look at the death penalty cases prosecuted in Tarrant County since 2015, as well as other recent death penalty developments in Texas and nationwide.

The Death Penalty in Tarrant County: Trials Since 2015:

Since 2015, Tarrant County juries have been asked to sentence capital murder defendants to death on at least six separate occasions. Three juries have elected to do so. Here’s a look at the cases:

Death Penalty Rejections:

• Burnches Mitchell
  In November 2019, a Tarrant County jury rejected prosecutors’ request to sentence Burnches Mitchell to death and instead opted for life in prison without the possibility of parole. Mitchell was convicted of capital murder for the Jan. 27, 2017, robbery and fatal shooting of Khrystophir Scott, who was a customer in the Quik Sak Store in White Settlement when Mitchell attempted to rob it. During his trial, jurors also learned that Mitchell stabbed a man to death when he was 13 years old.
• Miguel Hernandez
  In October 2017, jurors sentenced Miguel Angel Hernandez to life in prison without parole, rather than sending him to Death Row, for attacking two men during a violent robbery inside their home, leaving one dead and the other wounded. Hernandez was convicted of capital murder for the July 27, 2014, slaying of James Bowling, who was strangled during a violent fight during a burglary attempt. Bowling’s roommate, Don Keaton, was assaulted and doused in drain cleaner but survived.
• Gabriel Armandariz
  In March 2015, a Tarrant County jury rejected the death penalty for Gabriel Armandariz, who was convicted of strangling his two young sons in April 2011 in Graham. He was instead given life in prison without the possibility of parole. The case was moved to Tarrant County on a change of venue, so it was the decision of the Young County District Attorney (not the Tarrant County DA) to seek the death penalty in this particular case.

Death Sentences:

• Paige Terrell
  In April 2024, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Paige Terrell Lawyer to death for killing his killing his former girlfriend, O’Tishae Womack, and raping and killing her 10-year-old daughter, Ka’Myria Womack, in 2018.
• Hector Acosta
  In November 2019, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Hector Acosta to death for killing two people in Arlington in 2017, beheading one of the victims and mutilating their bodies with a machete and a two-by-four. Acosta, a Mexican drug cartel hit man, was convicted of capital murder fatally shooting Erik “Diablo” Zelaya and his 17-year-old girlfriend, Iris Chirinos.
• Amos Wells
  In November 2016, a Tarrant County jury sentenced Amos Wells to death for killing his pregnant girlfriend, Chanice Reed; her mother; and Chanice Reed’s 10-year-old brother. The three were fatally shot on July 1, 2013, after an argument at the family’s home in southeast Fort Worth.

Death Penalty Trials Currently Underway in Tarrant County

• Jason Thornburg
  Jason Thornburg is accused of killing and dismembering a man and two women in September 2021. Their bodies were found burning in a dumpster in Fort Worth. Thornburg also admitted to two other separate killings. Thornburg is on trial in Criminal District Court No. 3 in Tarrant County.
• Christopher Turber
   Christopher Turner is accused of fatally shooting Anwar Ali, a 62-year-old convenience store owner, during a robbery at Ali’s business. He is on trial in the 432nd District Court in Tarrant County.

Texas Counties with More than One Death Sentence in the Last Five Years

According to TCADP, a total of 11 counties have imposed death sentences in the last five years. Of these, juries in only two counties – Harris and Smith –  accounted for more than one new death sentence in this time period. More than one-third of all death sentences imposed by juries in the last five years came from these two counties.

Source: Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty

Why is the Texas Death Penalty Declining?

The reduction in capital punishment can be attributed to a combination of factors, including prosecutors waiving the death penalty in capital murder cases, jurors opting to assess life in prison without parole instead of a death sentence, and the state’s highest criminal appeals court staying, withdrawing or post-phoning death warrants. Not to mention, it is extremely expensive, costing millions of dollars and six to eight weeks of court time.

If a defendant gets the death penalty, their case is automatically appealed —  a process that can go on for decades. Many counties simply cannot afford to seek the death penalty or don’t want to pass the expense on to taxpayers.

What Constitutes a Capital Offense in Texas?

A capital offense in Texas is punishable by either life in prison without parole or death. The following crimes constitutes capital murder in Texas:

• Murder of a peace officer or fireman in the line of duty;
• Murder during the commission or attempted commission of the following felonies: kidnapping, burglary, robbery, aggravated sexual assault, arson, obstruction or retaliation, or terroristic threat;
• Murder-for-hire — that is, killing for payment or promise of payment;
• Murder during an escape or attempted escape from a penal institution;
• Murder, while incarcerated, of a correctional employee;
• Murder, while incarcerated, in conjunction with organized criminal activity;
• Murder while already incarcerated for capital murder or murder;
• Murder while serving a life sentence or 99-year sentence for aggravated kidnapping, aggravated sexual assault or aggravated robbery;
• Murder of more than one person during the same criminal transaction or during different transactions but under the same common scheme;
• Murder of a child under age 10;
• Murder of a judge or justice or in retaliation for the services of a judge or justice

More Facts about Capital Punishment and Texas Death Row:

• The death penalty has been carried out in Texas 591 times since 1982. This includes 65 people who were convicted in Dallas County, 45 people convicted in Tarrant County, and 135 in Harris County.
• Texas put eight people to death in 2023
• More than half of the 174 inmates on Texas Death Row come from the state’s most populous counties – Harris (64 inmates), Dallas (13 inmates) and Tarrant (12 inmates).
• Seven women are on Texas Death Row. Arguably the most infamous condemned inmate is Darlie Routier, who was convicted in the June 1996 of murder of her 5-year-old son, Damon, inside the family’s suburban Dallas home. Damon’s 6-year-old brother, Damon, was also stabbed to death. Routier, now age 54, has been on Texas’ Death Row for 23 years. No execution date has been set.
• The average amount of time spent on Texas Death Row is 11.22 years, but two inmates, David Lee Powell and Lester Bower, each spent 31 years.
• On June 29, 1972, in Furman v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment “cruel and unusual,” resulting in 52 men in Texas having their death sentences commuted to life in prison. The death penalty was reinstated in Texas in 1973.
• Texas Death Row inmates no longer get their requested “last meal.” The long-standing practice was terminated in 2011 after prison officials honored an elaborate meal request from Lawrence Russel Brewer, who was convicted in 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper. Before his execution, Brewer received two chicken-fried steaks; a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger; a cheese omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers and jalapeños; a bowl of fried okra with ketchup; one pound of barbecued meat with half a loaf of white bread; three fajitas; a meat-lover’s pizza; one pint of Blue Bell Ice Cream; a slab of peanut-butter fudge with crushed peanuts; and three root beers. The meal outraged State Senator John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, who wrote a note to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice asking them to immediately stop the practice or he would pass a bill to do so.

The Death Penalty Nationwide

• • Half of all U.S. states have abolished the death penalty or now prohibit executions.
  • In 2023, for the ninth consecutive year,  fewer than 30 people were executed (24) in the United States and fewer than 50 were sentenced to death (21).
  • Five states (Texas, Florida, Missouri, Oklahoma and Alabama) executed people last year and only seven states (Alabama, Arizona, California, Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas) sentenced people to death.
  • California has more people on Death Row than any other state, followed by Florida, Texas and Alabama.