harris county one county 100 executions

Harris County: "One County, 100 executions"

If Lonnie Johnson is executed today, he will be the 100th person

executed from Harris County. Click here to write Governor Perry to

protest this execution. We are hoping that he will get a stay, because

it is likely that Johnson, who is African-American, may have acted in

self-defense after being the victim of a hate crime.

Amnesty International has published a report on Harris County. Here is

a link to a PDF file of the entire report:

One county, 100 executions

Harris County and Texas -- A lethal combination

"One of the cruelest anomalies of the modern system of capital

punishment: Geography means everything", Houston Chronicle.

In 1969, "Houston" became the first word to be spoken by a human being

on the moon, beginning astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous message back

to earth. Four decades later, the City of Houston, or rather Harris

County where both the city and NASA's Johnson Space Center are

located, has gained international notoriety for something that pushes

the boundaries of human decency rather than space exploration.

For, while Texas is the execution centre of the USA, Harris County is

that state's main supplier of condemned human beings. This is a

lethally symbiotic relationship that helps to create geographic bias

in the US capital justice system on a grand scale.

Harris County is the third largest county in the United States, with a

population of a little under four million inhabitants, or about 1.3

per cent of the US population. Between one and two per cent of the

USA's murders each year occur in Harris County. About four per cent of

the country's current death row inmates were tried in Harris County.

Nine per cent of the men and 18 per cent of the women executed in the

United States since judicial killing resumed there in 1977 were

condemned to death in Harris County.

Ninety-seven men and two women prosecuted in Harris County have been

put to death since Texas carried out its first execution of the

"modern" era in 1982. At the time of writing, Lonnie Johnson was set

to become the 100th such prisoner to be put to death, his execution

scheduled for 24 July 2007. Johnny Connor was set to become the 101st

on 22 August and Michael Richards the 102nd on 25 September.

If Harris County was a state, it would rank 26th in population among

the US states, one above Oregon. Oregon has executed two people since

1977, both of whom had given up their appeals. There are about three

of four times as many murders each year in Harris County as there are

in Oregon, but Harris County accounts for 50 times as many executions

as that west coast state. Indeed, if Harris County was a state, it

would rank second only to Texas in the number of executions carried

out since 1977.

Donwload the complete 15 page report: One county, 100 executions