Cohort 2025
Texas Defender Service
Exposing Racial Bias in Death Penalty Charges
Tarrant County, TX
The death penalty is the most extreme action the government can take against its citizens. Yet it is applied in widely different ways across and even within jurisdictions. This issue has deeply affected Tarrant County, Texas, where a preliminary data analysis from Texas Defender Service revealed that Black people accounted for about 59 percent of people charged with capital murder despite making up only 18 percent of the county’s population. Of capitally charged people who ended up with a nonhomicide conviction, 66 percent were Black, suggesting that Black people are more likely to be initially overcharged for capital murder. Disparities are also seen at the national level, where studies have found that despite about half of homicide victims being Black, three-fourths of people on death row had white victims. Furthermore, 73 percent of people charged with federal capital offenses were people of color, and 60 percent of those federally sentenced with capital offenses were people of color.
With Catalyst grant funding, Texas Defender Service will expand on its initial research on the death penalty in Tarrant County, the county that has increased the use of the death penalty at the fastest rate (PDF) in Texas. With comprehensive follow-up data, it will use Microsoft data-management platforms to deeply analyze findings by different case and defendant elements. It will use technology to creatively visualize the data and share the results in a public-facing report. The end goal is to educate the community through a broader public communications campaign and advocate for reforms through guided discussions with Tarrant County officials.
