Texas has life without parole. A jury decides the sentence. The Governor needs a favorable recommendation from the Board of Pardons and Paroles in order to be able to grant clemency. The governor is not obligated to follow the recommendation of the Board. The Governor also has the power to grant a thirty day reprieve.

As of September 2006, Texas has conducted over 35% of the 1045 executions in the United States.  Only one commutation of a death sentence for humanitarian reasons has been granted since the death penalty was reinstated.

As of January 2009, only two inmates have ever been granted clemency, Henry Lee Lucas in 1998 and Kenneth Foster in 2007. As of this same date, there have been two exonerated inmates in the previous decade: Ernest Ray Willis in 2004 and Michael Blair in 2008.