Texas Death Penalty Presentation Outline: 20 Slides and Sample Speaker Notes
For information and reference only – not to be submitted as your own work.
This extract shows how a Texas death penalty outline can be laid out as a slide deck: a 20-slide outline plus five fully written speaker notes for the slides that carry the heaviest evidence. It follows the Texas capital punishment PowerPoint brief, and the companion guide explains how to plan a capital punishment presentation before you open PowerPoint. Every date and figure below was checked against the sources in the reference list; recheck counts that change over time, such as executions, before you present.
Planning table
The brief on the question page does not state marks or slide weightings, so check your brief for the grading rubric. The table below is a suggested split only.
| Brief task | Suggested slides | What markers are likely to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Execution history from the 1920s onward | 3–4 | Accurate dates, method of execution named for each period |
| Furman v. Georgia and the Texas response | 5–8 | Holding explained correctly, link to Texas statute and Gregg |
| Lethal injection law, first use and protocol changes | 9–11 | Statute date, first execution, later drug changes |
| Texas court challenges | 8, 12–13 | Case names, year, what the court decided |
| Time on death row and alternatives | 14–15 | Official figures, a reasoned alternative |
| Criminological theory, race, crime control | 16–19 | Theory applied to evidence, cautious reading of data |
| Conclusion and references | 20 plus a reference slide | Clear position, APA 7 list |
Need the deck built and the notes written for you? Our PowerPoint presentation service covers slides, speaker notes, and formatting.
20-slide outline
| Slide | Slide title | On-slide bullets | Speaker-note summary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Capital Punishment in Texas, 1920s to Today | Course, presenter, date | Name the question the deck answers |
| 2 | Roadmap | Five parts: history, law, method, evidence, verdict | Preview the argument and the sources used |
| 3 | The Electric Chair Arrives, 1923–1924 | 1923 law moves executions to Huntsville; first electrocutions Feb. 8, 1924 | Full note below |
| 4 | The Electric Chair Era, 1924–1964 | 361 electrocuted; last, July 30, 1964 (Texas Department of Criminal Justice [TDCJ], n.d.-a) | Frame as the baseline for later change |
| 5 | Furman v. Georgia, 1972 | Decided June 29, 1972; 5–4; Texas sentences commuted (Furman v. Georgia, 1972; TDCJ, n.d.-a) | Full note below |
| 6 | Texas Rewrites Its Statute | Revised law, 1973 (Texas State Library and Archives Commission, n.d.); new sentencing questions for juries | Show why Furman did not end the penalty |
| 7 | Gregg v. Georgia, 1976 | Decided July 2, 1976; 7–2; guided discretion upheld (Gregg v. Georgia, 1976) | Explain bifurcated trials and aggravating factors |
| 8 | Jurek v. Texas, 1976 | Same day; three special issues; future dangerousness (Jurek v. Texas, 1976) | Texas challenge 1: statute upheld |
| 9 | Lethal Injection Becomes Law, 1977 | Enacted May 11, 1977; second state after Oklahoma (Ex parte Granviel, 1978) | Full note below |
| 10 | First Lethal Injection, 1982 | Charlie Brooks, Dec. 7, 1982 (TDCJ, n.d.-a) | Link method change to public and legal debate |
| 11 | Protocol Revisions | Your findings on drugs used over time, from current TDCJ procedures | Explain why drug supply and law keep reshaping the protocol |
| 12 | Ex parte Granviel, 1978 | Lethal injection challenge denied: cruelty, vagueness, delegation (Ex parte Granviel, 1978) | Texas challenge 2: method upheld |
| 13 | Third Texas Court Challenge | Your choice, verified on Justia | State what was challenged and the outcome |
| 14 | Time on Death Row | Average 11.22 years before execution; longest 11,575 days (TDCJ, n.d.-a) | Use TDCJ figures, state their limits |
| 15 | If Lethal Injection Were Struck Down | Two or three alternatives, with legal risks | Compare options against the Eighth Amendment |
| 16 | Criminological Theory: Deterrence | Rational-choice logic; what research can and cannot show (National Research Council, 2012) | Apply theory, then test it on slides 18–19 |
| 17 | Race and Executions | 597 executions: 266 White, 213 Black, 114 Hispanic, 4 Other (TDCJ, n.d.-b) | Full note below |
| 18 | Crime Control: Do Executions Reduce Murder? | 1999 murder rates 5.5 vs 3.6 per 100,000 (Death Penalty Information Center [DPIC], n.d.) | Full note below |
| 19 | Texas Compared With Michigan | Michigan has no death penalty; compare murder trends carefully | Compare trends, warn against causal claims |
| 20 | Conclusion | Three findings, one position | Answer the opening question directly |
The brief asks for at least 20 content slides plus a reference slide, so add a final slide titled References in APA 7 format after slide 20.
Sample speaker notes
Slide 3: The electric chair arrives, 1923–1924
Open with the legal change before the story. In 1923 the Texas legislature moved all executions to Huntsville, where the condemned would be electrocuted (Texas State Library and Archives Commission, n.d.; Ex parte Granviel, 1978). The first use came on February 8, 1924, when five Black men from East Texas were electrocuted in one day (Texas State Library and Archives Commission, n.d.).
Pause on that detail. Charles Reynolds was the first of the five to die (TDCJ, n.d.-a). The point for your audience is that the state centralized executions in one place and that the first five men put to death there were all Black. Keep the tone factual and let the slide image, an archival photograph of the chair if you have the rights, carry the weight.
Transition: “The state would use this method for four decades. Slide 4 shows the scale.”
Slide 5: Furman v. Georgia, 1972
Explain what the Court actually decided. On June 29, 1972, the Supreme Court held in a short unsigned opinion that imposing and carrying out the death penalty in the cases before it was cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments (Furman v. Georgia, 1972). Five justices wrote separate opinions supporting the judgment and four dissented, so the ruling was 5–4 and there was no single majority rationale (Furman v. Georgia, 1972).
The effect in Texas was immediate. The sentences of everyone on Texas death row, 45 men in 1972, were commuted to life imprisonment (TDCJ, n.d.-a). Be careful with wording: Furman struck down the way sentences were being imposed, not the penalty in principle. That distinction sets up slide 6, where Texas rewrites its statute, and slide 7, where the Court answers in Gregg.
Transition: “Texas did not abandon capital punishment. It redesigned it.”
Slide 9: Lethal injection becomes law, 1977
Present the method change as a policy choice. The Texas legislature amended Article 43.14 so that execution would be “by intravenous injection of a substance or substances in a lethal quantity sufficient to cause death,” replacing electrocution. The Court of Criminal Appeals dates the amendment to May 11, 1977, and notes that Texas was the second state to authorize lethal injection, after Oklahoma (Ex parte Granviel, 1978).
The statute did not name a drug. It left the choice to the head of the prison agency, which later became a point of legal challenge, covered on slide 12. No one was executed this way for five more years, until Charlie Brooks on December 7, 1982, which slide 10 covers (TDCJ, n.d.-a).
Ask the audience to hold one question: does leaving drug choice to an administrator weaken accountability? You will return to it when you cover later protocol changes on slide 11.
Slide 17: Race and executions
State the numbers first, then the limits. TDCJ’s list of executed offenders contained 597 executions when checked, the most recent on January 28, 2026: 266 White, 213 Black, 114 Hispanic, and 4 in the Other category (TDCJ, n.d.-b). That is about 45 percent White, 36 percent Black, 19 percent Hispanic, and under 1 percent Other.
For context, the U.S. Census Bureau estimates Texas is 13.7 percent Black, 40.3 percent Hispanic or Latino, and 38.7 percent White alone, not Hispanic (U.S. Census Bureau, n.d.). Black Texans therefore appear among those executed at roughly 2.6 times their share of the state population, while Hispanic Texans appear at less than half theirs.
Name the cautions aloud. The two sources use different category definitions and time frames, and population share is not the same as the share of people charged with capital murder. These figures do not show the race of victims, which the strongest studies examine. Say what extra data you would need, and do not claim intent from totals alone.
Slide 18: Crime control, do executions reduce murder?
Lead with the comparison, then the caution. The Death Penalty Information Center, using FBI Uniform Crime Reports, reports an average murder rate of 5.5 per 100,000 in death penalty states in 1999 against 3.6 in states without the penalty (DPIC, n.d.). Non-death-penalty states have consistently had lower rates, according to the same page.
A raw gap is not proof that the penalty fails to deter. Differences in poverty, urbanization, and policing could explain it. The National Research Council reviewed the deterrence studies and concluded they cannot reliably show whether capital punishment raises, lowers, or has no effect on homicide rates, and it urged research comparing the penalty with life imprisonment without parole (National Research Council, 2012).
Your position, then, is modest and defensible: the evidence offers no clear support for the crime-control claim. Link back to the deterrence theory on slide 16, then forward to the Michigan comparison on slide 19.
If your course also needs a written report on the same material, the criminal justice report writing page explains what is available, and law students can look at the law assignment help page for case-analysis support. Ready to start? Send your brief through the assignment submission page.
References
Death Penalty Information Center. (n.d.). Murder rate of death penalty states compared to non-death penalty states. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-and-research/murder-rates/murder-rate-of-death-penalty-states-compared-to-non-death-penalty-states
Ex parte Granviel, 561 S.W.2d 503 (Tex. Crim. App. 1978). https://law.justia.com/cases/texas/court-of-criminal-appeals/1978/56267-3.html
Furman v. Georgia, 408 U.S. 238 (1972). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/408/238/
Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153 (1976). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/428/153/
Jurek v. Texas, 428 U.S. 262 (1976). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/428/262/
National Research Council. (2012). Deterrence and the death penalty. National Academies Press. https://www.nationalacademies.org/publications/13363
Texas Department of Criminal Justice. (n.d.-a). Death row facts. https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_facts.html
Texas Department of Criminal Justice. (n.d.-b). Executed offenders. https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/death_row/dr_executed_offenders.html
Texas State Library and Archives Commission. (n.d.). Death penalty. https://www.tsl.texas.gov/exhibits/prisons/inquiry/deathpenalty.html
U.S. Census Bureau. (n.d.). QuickFacts: Texas. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/TX
Students Assignment Help Editorial Team
This model answer was prepared by our editorial team in response to a real assignment brief we received. It shows one way to approach the task and is meant as a study guide, not for submission.
