Texas again led the country in executions this year with 13 lethal injections — and Dallas County topped the state list.
There were 25 executions nationwide, and only eight states carried out the ultimate punishment, according to an annual report released Friday by the Death Penalty Information Center.
Texas accounted for more than half of those executions.
Dallas County led the state with the most offenders executed this year at four, including two executions this month.
Execution dates have been set in 2019 for two inmates from Dallas County: Mark Robertson and Patrick Henry Murphy, a member of the Texas Seven prison escapees.
Dallas also sent someone to death row for the first time since 2013. There were seven new death sentences across the state, up from four in 2017.
New death sentences have been declining steadily in Texas in the past 20 years. In 1999, Texas juries sent 48 people to death row. Since 2015, only 17 people have been sentenced to die.
Two death row offenders were exonerated this year and three others were granted clemency and given life sentences instead, the national report shows.
One of those given clemency was Thomas Whitaker of Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott spared Whitaker one hour before the scheduled execution in February. Whitaker's father, who survived the 2003 attack, pleaded for his son's life. The man had been convicted of hiring a hit man to kill his parents and brother. His mother and brother died in their suburban Houston home.
Also, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals threw out the death sentence for a man twice condemned in Dallas County — first in 1987 and again in 2014.
Kenneth Wayne Thomas, 57, was convicted of capital murder for killing a Dallas civil rights attorney and his wife, a math professor. Fred and Mildred Finch were found stabbed to death in their home in 1986.
The state's highest criminal court ordered a new sentencing trial so a jury could determine whether Thomas is intellectually disabled, making him ineligible for capital punishment.
It is the second Dallas County death sentence that has been sent back to a trial court in recent years. Hector Medina, 39, was convicted of capital murder for killing his 3-year-old son and 8-month-old daughter in retaliation after their mother left him.
Medina was granted a new sentencing trial in October 2017 because of his defense attorney's "deficient performance." A trial date has not been set.
Planned 2019 executions from Dallas County:
Patrick Henry Murphy Jr., 57, is scheduled to die by lethal injection March 28. Murphy is one of two surviving members of the Texas Seven, a group of prison escapees who killed an Irving police officer on Christmas Eve in 2000.
Mark Robertson, 50, is scheduled to die by lethal injection April 11. Robertson killed 81-year-old Edna Brau and her 19-year-old grandson, Sean Jason Hill, during a robbery at the elderly woman's Dallas home in 1989. The condemned man also confessed to killing a convenience store clerk.
Executed offenders from Dallas County in 2018:
William Rayford, 64, died by lethal injection Jan. 30. Rayford killed his ex-girlfriend in 1999, while he was on parole for the murder of his wife in 1986. The man kidnapped, stabbed, beat and strangled 44-year-old Carol Lynn Thomas Hall. Hall's 11-year-old son was also stabbed and beaten while trying to stop Rayford. The boy ran to safety at a neighbor's house and later led police to his mother's body.
John Battaglia, 62, died by lethal injection Feb. 1. Battaglia killed his two daughters in 2001 in his Deep Ellum loft while their mother listened helplessly on the phone. He was on probation at the time for hitting his ex-wife, the girls' mother. She had been trying to have him arrested for violating the terms of his probation.
Joseph Garcia, 47, died by lethal injection Dec. 4. Garcia was one of seven prison escapees who went on a crime spree in 2000, killing Irving police Officer Aubrey Hawkins on Christmas Eve. Garcia was the fourth of the Texas Seven to be executed. One man, Larry Harper, killed himself before the escapees were captured. Two others remain on death row, including Patrick Henry Murphy, who is scheduled to die March 28.
Alvin Braziel Jr., 43, died by lethal injection Dec. 11. He was convicted of capital murder in 2001, nearly eight years after he killed 27-year-old newlywed Douglas White during an attempted robbery. White was walking with his wife, 23-year-old Lora White, at Eastfield College in Mesquite when an armed man approached them, shot Douglas White and raped Lora White. Braziel was connected to the crime years later through DNA evidence.
