<P> As result of the Furman decision, the 52 Texas death - row inmates at the time had all their sentences reduced to life imprisonment . Among them was Kenneth McDuff, who was originally condemned for the murder of three teenagers in 1966 . He was paroled in 1989 and executed in 1998 for a murder he committed while on parole, and is suspected to have been responsible for many other killings . </P> <P> Furman led to a 1973 revision of the laws, primarily by introducing the bifurcated trial process (where the guilt - innocence and punishment phases are separate) and narrowly limiting the legal definition of capital murder (and, thus, those offenses for which the death penalty could be imposed). The first person sentenced to death under a new Texas statute was John Devries on February 15, 1974; Devries hanged himself in his cell on July 1, 1974 (using bedsheets from his bunk) before he could be executed . </P> <P> The Supreme Court decision in Gregg v. Georgia in 1976 once again allowed for the death penalty to be imposed . (A Texas case was a companion case in the Gregg decision and was upheld by the Court; the Court stated that Texas' death penalty scheme could potentially result in fewer death penalty cases, an irony given that post-Gregg Texas has by far executed more inmates than any other state .) However, the first execution in Texas after this decision would not take place until December 7, 1982 with that of Charles Brooks, Jr...Brooks was also the first person to be judicially executed by lethal injection in the world, and the first African American to be executed in the United States since 1967 . </P> <P> In the post-Gregg era, Texas has executed 551 people . There are a variety of proposed legal and cultural explanations as to why Texas has more executions than any other state . One possible reason is due to the federal appellate structure--federal appeals from Texas are made to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit . Michael Sharlot, dean of the University of Texas at Austin Law School, found the Fifth Circuit to be a "much more conservative circuit" than the Ninth Circuit to which federal appeals from California are made . According to him, the Fifth is "more deferential to the popular will" that is strongly pro-death penalty and creates few legal obstacles to execution within its jurisdiction . As of 2004, however, Texas may have a lower rate of death sentencing than other states, according to a study by Cornell University . </P>

When did the state of texas reinstate the death penalty