THE CLAIM: Farouk Shami said that over the past few years, the state has executed a few people who were innocent. He then added, "We have killed lots of innocent people in the state of Texas."

THE FACTS: There is no definitive evidence yet that any person executed in Texas in the modern era was innocent. There has been a drumbeat of accusations, the most prominent the case of Cameron Todd Willingham. A state panel is investigating allegations of negligence and misconduct in forensic work that led to Willingham's 2004 execution for the house fire that killed his three daughters.

BOTTOM LINE: Shami is wrong. Although a group that favors a death penalty moratorium cites Willingham and two other condemned inmates as wrongly executed, no court or other authority has reached that conclusion, at least not in the time frame that Shami referred to, and certainly not "lots."

James Drew

THE CLAIM: Bill White said Texas electricty rates were lower than the national average before deregulation and residential rates now are "higher than they are in the rest of the nation, including neighboring states like Oklahoma and Louisiana."

THE FACTS: There is no dispute that rates in Texas were low compared with other states before the Legislature deregulated the electricity market with a 1999 law. And there is also little debate that electric rates jumped in many parts of the state after the market was opened up to competition in 2002.

A study in early 2009 by a group that negotiates power prices on behalf of cities concluded that Texans pay more than the national average for power and that prices have risen faster than in any other state with retail electricity competition. Other studies indicate that prices would have been higher in Texas if the market were still regulated.

A federal government report last year found that Texas was just below the national average, with the 18th-highest rate, for overall electricity prices. But for residential costs, which White focused on, Texans pay more than the national average. Oklahoma and Louisiana both had average rates that were well below Texas.

BOTTOM LINE: White's statement is true.

Terrence Stutz