The death sentence given this week to Terence Andrus makes him the 9th person sentenced to death in Texas in 2012. The year is not over yet, but if no one else is sentenced to death, the number this year will be one more than in 2011. New death sentences have declined from their high in the late 90s. In 1999, there were 48 people sentenced to death.
88.8 percent of the nine new death sentences handed out in 2012 in Texas have been given to people of color. Of the nine people sentenced to death so far in Texas in 2012, seven are African-American, one is Hispanic and one white. One of the eight persons is a woman.
