Archive | Harris County

16 May 2013 ~ Comments Off

State of Texas Executes Jeffrey Williams

death penalty execution Harris County Houston Texas

On May 15, 2015, the State of Texas put Jeffrey Williams to death for the murder of plainclothes Houston police officer Troy Blando in 1999 while being arrested for stealing a car.  The U.S. Supreme Court denied his last appeal regarding a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.  Read more from the Associated Press, via the Austin American-Statesman.

It was the sixth execution to take place in Texas this year, out of twelve nationwide, and the first involving a case from Harris County since District Attorney Mike Anderson was sworn into office in January.    Texas has executed 498 people since 1982.

With the May 21 scheduled execution of Robert Pruett stayed for DNA testing, the next execution is scheduled to take place on June 12.

 

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20 March 2013 ~ Comments Off

More than 100 Prominent Leaders Call for New Sentencing Hearing for Duane Buck

death penalty Duane Buck Harris County Mark White racial bias re-sentencing trial Texas

Today, over 100 prominent individuals from Texas and throughout the country, including civil rights leaders, elected officials, former prosecutors and judges, past and present ABA presidents, and clergy representing seven faith denominations, released a statement urging the Harris County District Attorney to provide a new, fair sentencing hearing for Texas death row inmate Duane Buck. Former Texas Governor Mark White, one of the signatories, delivered the statement to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston this morning.  Read the Statement of Support and view the full list of 102 signatories.

In 1997, Mr. Buck was convicted of fatally shooting Debra Gardner and Kenneth Butler. During his sentencing hearing, the prosecutor elicited testimony from Dr. Walter Quijano before the jury in which he indicated that African Americans, like Mr. Buck, are more likely to commit future acts of violence. Under Texas’ death penalty statute, prosecutors must demonstrate a defendant’s “future dangerousness” and juries may impose a death sentence only if they find that the defendant poses such a future danger. In her closing argument at Mr. Buck’s sentencing, the prosecutor urged the jury to impose a death sentence and, in doing so, relied on Dr. Quijano’s testimony that Mr. Buck would be dangerous in the future. The jury followed the prosecutor’s recommendation:  it found that Mr. Buck posed a future danger and sentenced him to death.

Mr. Buck’s life was spared by the U.S. Supreme Court before his scheduled execution in September 2011. Although two U.S. Supreme Court justices agreed that Mr. Buck’s death sentence required review because “our criminal justice system should not tolerate” a death sentence “marred by racial overtones,” the case is now back in the hands of state officials.

Read today’s press release and learn more about the case of Duane Buck.

Join more than 100 local, state, and national leaders in calling for a new sentencing hearing for Duane Buck!

Another signatory to the statement, former Harris County District Attorney Linda Geffin, one of Mr. Buck’s trial prosecutors, today started an online petition on Change.org in support of a new, fair sentencing hearing for Mr. Buck.  Sign the petition now!

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13 March 2013 ~ Comments Off

New Study Finds Significant Racial Bias in Harris County’s Death Penalty System

death penalty Duane Buck Harris County racial bias Texas

New research released today in an appeal filed by Texas death row inmate Duane Buck shows that at the time of Mr. Buck’s case, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office was over three times more likely to seek the death penalty against African American defendants like Mr. Buck.  The research also shows that Harris County juries were more than twice as likely to impose death sentences on African American defendants in cases like Mr. Buck’s.

In 1997, Mr. Buck was convicted of fatally shooting Debra Gardner and Kenneth Butler. During his sentencing hearing, the prosecutor elicited testimony from Dr. Walter Quijano before the jury in which he indicated that African Americans, like Mr. Buck, are more likely to commit future acts of violence. Under Texas’ death penalty statute, prosecutors must demonstrate a defendant’s “future dangerousness” and juries may impose a death sentence only if they find that the defendant poses such a future danger. In her closing argument at Mr. Buck’s sentencing, the prosecutor urged the jury to impose a death sentence and, in doing so, relied on Dr. Quijano’s testimony that Mr. Buck would be dangerous in the future.[1] The jury followed the prosecutor’s recommendation:  it found that Mr. Buck posed a future danger and sentenced him to death.

Three years after Mr. Buck’s capital trial, then-Texas Attorney General (now U.S. Senator) John Cornyn identified seven cases in which the State of Texas impermissibly relied on Dr. Quijano’s testimony linking the race of defendants to future dangerousness. One of those cases was Mr. Buck’s. The Attorney General acknowledged that reliance on testimony connecting race to dangerousness was wholly unacceptable and promised that the Attorney General’s Office would seek new, fair sentencing hearings for these seven men, including Mr. Buck.

Each of the individuals identified by the Attorney General as deserving a new sentencing hearing has now received one — except for Duane Buck.

The petition filed today by Mr. Buck challenges his death sentence as “an unconstitutional product of racial discrimination” and asks the court to grant him a new, fair sentencing hearing that is free from racially-biased testimony.

Read a press release issued today  on behalf of Mr. Buck’s attorneys, including Christina Swarns of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Kathryn Kase of Texas Defender Service, and Kate Black.

Read more about the new study by University of Maryland Professor Ray Paternoster, which finds racial bias in Harris County’s death penalty system.
More information about Mr. Buck’s case can be found at http://www.naacpldf.org/case-issue/duane-buck-sentenced-death-because-he-black.

[1] “You heard from Dr. Quijano, who had a lot of experience in the Texas Department of Corrections, who told you that there was a probability that the man would commit future acts of violence.” Source: State’s Closing Argument, Cause No. 699684, Reporter’s Record, Volume 28, p. 260 (1997).

 

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12 December 2012 ~ Comments Off

TCADP Report: Use of Death Penalty Geographically Isolated, Arbitrarily Imposed in Texas

capital punishment Carlos Deluna Dallas death penalty death sentences executions Ft. Worth Harris County intellectual disabilities jury rejection severe mental illness Stay of execution Tarrant County TCADP Annual Report Texas

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, December 12, 2012

CONTACT: Kristin Houlé, Executive Director
512-441-1808 (office); 512-552-5948 (cell)
khoule@tcadp.org

Use of Death Penalty Geographically Isolated, Arbitrarily Imposed in Texas,
According to New Report by TCADP

Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex led state in pursuit of the death penalty in 2012

(Austin, Texas) — More than half of all new death sentences were imposed in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex this year, while no new death sentences were imposed in Harris County for the third time in five years, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s (TCADP) new report, Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2012: The Year in Review.

New death sentences in Texas have declined more than 75% since 2002 and remain near historic low levels in 2012.  To date this year, juries have condemned nine new individuals to death in Texas, a slight increase over 2011 and 2010, when new death sentences fell to their lowest number since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ revised death penalty statute in 1976.  The verdict in a capital murder trial in Brazos County, in which prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, has been delayed indefinitely pending a legal dispute over jury instructions.

Tarrant and Dallas Counties each accounted for two new death sentences and Johnson County accounted for one.  Dallas County now leads the state in new death sentences since 2008, accounting for nearly 20% of sentences imposed in the last five years.  Dallas County also led the state in executions, accounting for 5 of the 15 executions carried out this year.

“While most of Texas is moving away from the death penalty, the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was a major outlier both in new death sentences and executions this year,” said Kristin Houlé, Executive Director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.  “2012 exemplified the arbitrariness that pervades the death penalty system in Texas.  Not only does it remain geographically isolated to just a few jurisdictions statewide, but it continues to be applied in a haphazard and unfair way, particularly when it comes to individuals with intellectual disabilities or severe mental illness and people of color.”

Seven of the new death row inmates in 2012 are African-American, one is Hispanic, and one is a white female.  Over the last five years, nearly 75% of death sentences in Texas have been imposed on people of color – 46% African-American and 28% Hispanic.  In Dallas County, this pattern is even more pronounced – of the eight men sentenced to death there since 2008, five are African-American and two are Hispanic.

Of the 15 men executed in Texas this year, seven were African-American, four were Hispanic, and four were white.

“Although Texas is using the death penalty less, the state still uses it disproportionately on people of color,” said Kathryn Kase, Executive Director of the Texas Defender Service.  “This is a recurring problem and Texas’ failure to fix it demonstrates how broken its capital punishment system is.”

Troubling questions also persist regarding the arbitrary determination of who receives the ultimate punishment.  Cases involving individuals with comparable backgrounds or who presented similar legal arguments received vastly different treatment by the criminal justice system this year.

As one example of this arbitrariness, several death row inmates with diagnosed severe mental illnesses were scheduled for execution this year.  The executions of Steven Staley and Marcus Druery were halted pending unresolved issues related to their mental competency, while the execution of Jonathan Green, who reportedly suffered from schizophrenia, proceeded on October 10, 2012 after significant legal wrangling.

This disparate treatment was also evident in terms of issues related to intellectual disabilities.

Two inmates with recognized intellectual disabilities received reduced sentences and were removed from death row this year: Roosevelt Smith, convicted in 2007, and Anthony Pierce, who spent more than three decades on death row.  On the other hand, Marvin Wilson was executed on August 7, 2012 despite being diagnosed with an IQ of 61, well below the threshold of 70 for mental impairment.  His case created an international uproar and starkly illustrated the woefully inadequate and unscientific standards used by the State of Texas to determine which defendants with intellectual disabilities are protected from execution.

Other highlights of Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2012: The Year in Review:

  • The State of Texas accounted for more than a third of U.S. executions this year, a smaller percentage than in the past but nearly three times as many as any other state.  Texas has executed a total of 492 people since 1982 – 253 executions have occurred during the administration of Texas Governor Rick Perry (2001 – present), more than any other governor in U.S. history.
  • Six inmates scheduled for execution in 2012 received reprieves.  In addition, three execution dates were withdrawn.
  • Death-qualified juries rejected the death penalty in the sentencing phase in four trials this year and instead opted for life in prison without the possibility of parole.  In all four cases, the jury determined that the defendant did not pose a future danger.  Over the last five years, death-qualified juries have rejected the death penalty in at least 20 capital murder trials.
  • According to research by TCADP, the Texas death row population stands at its lowest level since 1989.  As of November 16, 2012, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice counted 289 death row inmates, which includes 10 women.

“Attitudes toward the death penalty are shifting as public confidence in the ultimate punishment continues to erode,” said Houlé.  “As we approach the start of the 83rd Texas Legislature, TCADP urges concerned citizens and elected officials to confront the realities of this irreversible punishment and reconsider the efficacy and cost of the death penalty as a means of achieving justice.”

TCADP is a statewide, grassroots advocacy organization based in Austin.

Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2012: The Year in Review is available online at www.tcadp.org/TexasDeathPenaltyDevelopments2012.pdf.  Contact report author Kristin Houlé at khoule@tcadp.org to receive a copy directly via email.  See the report for tables illustrating Texas’ highest-use counties from 2008-2012, the race of defendants sentenced to death in the last five years, and additional graphs depicting recent trends.

See http://tcadp.org/2008-2012-new-death-sentences/ for a map of new death sentences by county from 2008 to 2012.

See http://tcadp.org/1976-2012-county-map/ for a map of death sentences by county from 1976 to 2012.

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15 December 2011 ~ 1 Comment

TCADP 2011 Annual Report: Texas Carries Out Fewest Executions Since 1996

Bexar County Cameron Todd Willingham capital punishment Dallas death penalty death sentences DNA testing Duane Buck executions Governor Rick Perry Hank Skinner Harris County Houston Humberto Leal jury rejection Larry Swearingen lethal injection Mexican National Stay of execution TCADP Annual Report Texas Department of Criminal Justice Texas. Court of Criminal Appeals Travis County U.S. Supreme Court

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, December 15, 2011

CONTACT: Kristin Houlé, Executive Director
512-441-1808 (office); 512-552-5948 (cell)
khoule@tcadp.org

Spanish Translation

State of Texas Carries Out Fewest Executions Since 1996,
According to New Report from TCADP
New Death Sentences Remain at Record-Low Level, Imposed by Just Six Counties in the State

(Austin, Texas) — Executions dropped to the lowest number since 1996 and death sentences in Texas remained at a historic low level in 2011, according to the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s (TCADP) new report, Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2011: The Year in Review. TCADP is an Austin-based statewide, grassroots advocacy organization.

In 2011, the State of Texas carried out 13 executions, which is 50% less than in 2007.  It accounted for 30% of the national total, once again a smaller percentage than years past but still twice as many as any other state.  Texas has executed a total of 477 people since 1982; 238 executions have occurred during the administration of Texas Governor Rick Perry, more than any other governor in U.S. history.

For the second year in a row, juries condemned eight new individuals to death in Texas. This remains the lowest number of new death sentences since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Texas’ revised death penalty statute in 1976.  Once again, just six counties in the state of Texas accounted for the new death row inmates: Fort Bend (1); Galveston (1); Harris (3); Harrison (1); Tarrant (1); and Travis (1).  This represents 2% of all Texas counties.

“Texas – along with the rest of the nation – is steadily moving away from the death penalty,” said Kristin Houlé, Executive Director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.  “Use of the death penalty has been relegated to just a few jurisdictions in the state as prosecutors and jurors accept alternatives that protect society and punish those who are truly guilty.  Still, longstanding concerns about the arbitrary and biased administration of the death penalty remain.”

An analysis of data from 2007 to 2011 reveals that only 23 Texas counties have imposed death sentences over the last 5 years; of these, only 10 counties have done so in the last 2 years.  Out of a total 51 death sentences imposed in this time period, Harris County leads with 9; it is followed by Dallas County, with 7 new sentences since 2007, and Tarrant and Travis Counties, with 4 new sentences each.  The other 19 counties imposed 1-3 sentences each.  Together, these 23 counties represent just 9% of the 254 counties in Texas.

Significantly, no new death sentences were imposed in Dallas County for the first time in five years.  Prosecutors sought the death penalty for Charles Payne, but the jury rejected the charge of capital murder and instead found him guilty of murder in the shooting of police officer Senior Cpl. Norm Smith.  This represented the first time since 1996 that prosecutors in Dallas County did not secure a capital murder conviction in a case in which they sought the death penalty. In another Dallas case, prosecutors dropped their pursuit of the death penalty and agreed to a life sentence for Johnathan Bruce Reed after he was found guilty for a third time in the 1978 murder of Wanda Jean Wadle. Overall, Dallas County accounts for 102 death sentences since 1976.

Bexar County, which has sentenced the third highest number of people to death in Texas, has not imposed any new death sentences since 2009.

Notably, six out of the eight new death sentences were imposed on people of color, including four African Americans and two Hispanics/Latinos.  Over the last five years, nearly three-fourths of all death sentences in Texas have been imposed on people of color – 41% African American, 29% Hispanic/Latino, and 2% other.  In Harris County, where these patterns are even more pronounced, 12 of the last 13 defendants sentenced to death are African American and the 13th is Hispanic/Latino.

Five inmates scheduled for execution in 2011 received stays, while the execution date for another inmate was withdrawn.

  • On September 15, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily stayed the execution of Duane Buck, pending a conference on his cert petition. During his trial, psychologist Walter Quijano, a witness for the defense, testified on cross-examination that the fact that Buck is African American increased the likelihood of his being dangerous in the future.  Such improperly elicited, racially-based testimony by Dr. Quijano led to new sentencing hearings in six other cases where the State of Texas conceded error – but not for Duane Buck.  On November 7, 2011, the Court declined to review Buck’s case.
  • On November 7, 2011, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals issued a stay to Henry “Hank” Skinner, who was scheduled for execution on November 9.  Key pieces of evidence collected at the crime scene have never been subjected to DNA testing, and for the last 10 years officials have refused to release it for analysis.  The court stayed the execution to consider Skinner’s case in light of recent legislative changes to the statute related to post-conviction DNA testing. This was the second stay of execution for Skinner in two years.

Other highlights of Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2011: The Year in Review include the following:

  • In one capital murder trial, the jury rejected the death penalty and opted for a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.  In two other cases, death-qualified jurors convicted the defendant on a charge less than capital murder, which took the death penalty off the table.  In the last four years, death-qualified juries have rejected the death penalty in at least 14 cases.
  • Six inmates received reduced sentences in 2011 and were removed from the death row population, including Chelsea Richardson, one of ten women on death row.
  • The State of Texas executed Humberto Leal on July 7, 2011 for the 1994 rape and murder of Adria Sauceda in San Antonio.  As a Mexican national, Leal was legally entitled to seek assistance from the Mexican consulate, which could have provided him with competent legal counsel.  Texas authorities failed to inform him of this right, which is afforded to Americans and foreigners who travel abroad by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
  • In July, the capital murder trial of John Edward Green, which was in its sixth week of jury selection, ended abruptly when Harris County prosecutors accepted an offer from the defense.  In the deal, Green pled guilty to a lesser murder charge in exchange for a 40-year prison term; he had faced a possible death sentence if convicted.  A pre-trial motion in his case prompted two days of unprecedented testimony on the risk of wrongful conviction last December.

“Recent developments have infused the public conversation about the death penalty with new energy and new urgency,” said Houlé.  “Now, more than ever, we urge concerned citizens and elected officials to engage in dialogue about the realities of the death penalty system and reconsider this irreversible punishment by focusing on its local impact as an expensive, arbitrary, and error-prone public policy.”

Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2011: The Year in Review is available online at www.tcadp.org/TexasDeathPenaltyDevelopments2011.pdf.  Contact Kristin Houlé at khoule@tcadp.org to receive a copy directly via email.

See http://tcadp.org/2007-2011-new-death-sentences/ for a map of new death sentences by county from 2007 to 2011.

See http://tcadp.org/1976-2011-county-map/ for a map of death sentences by county from 1976 to 2011.

Download this press release:  www.tcadp.org/2011TCADPannualreportpressrelease.pdf.

In Spanish.

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15 November 2011 ~ 2 Comments

Black Defendants Received 12 of Last 13 Death Sentences in Harris County

death penalty death sentences Duane Buck Harris County Houston Chronicle racial bias Texas U.S. Supreme Court

According to an investigation by the Houston Chronicle, 12 of the last 13 defendants sentenced to death in Harris County have been African American.  The 13th death sentence was handed down last month (October 2011) to Jaime Cole, who is Hispanic.

In her article “Harris death penalties show racial pattern” (November 14, 2011), reporter Lise Olsen  makes these important observations:

  • Eight of 12 African-Americans were sentenced to death during the tenure of Chuck Rosenthal, who resigned as district attorney in 2008 over sexually-charged and racially-tinged emails.
  • Under [current Harris County District Attorney Pat] Lykos, four more African-Americans and one Hispanic also were sentenced to die.
  • More than a third of the state’s current 305 death row inmates came from Harris County. So did half of the 121 black inmates on death row, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice data.
  • Blacks account for about half of recent murder arrests in Harris County. But they more often get charged with capital murder than whites or Hispanics, an analysis of more than 300 recent court cases by the Chronicle shows.

The article also notes that “The role of race in capital punishment has emerged repeatedly this year in the unsuccessful appeals by Duane Buck, an African-American from Houston convicted in a double murder.  His 1997 sentencing featured testimony from a former prison psychiatrist who claimed blacks are more dangerous than whites.”  Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Buck’s petition for relief.

This data from the Chronicle reflects statewide racial patterns in sentencing.  According to TCADP’s 2010 annual report, over the last four years, nearly three-fourths of all death sentences in Texas have been imposed on people of color – 40% African American, 30% Hispanic/Latino, and 2% other.

Read the full article in the Houston Chronicle.

Also read a blog post regarding the Supreme Court’s decision to turn down the petition of Duane Buck by New York Times Editorial Page Editor Andrew Rosenthal.

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07 November 2011 ~ 1 Comment

Prominent Leaders Call on Harris County D.A. to Remedy Duane Buck Case

death penalty Duane Buck Harris County Texas U.S. Supreme Court

More than 60 prominent civil rights leaders, faith leaders, elected officials, and former presidents of the American Bar Association are calling upon Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos to provide remedy in the case of Duane Buck, who was scheduled to be executed by the State of Texas on September 15, 2011.   Read the press release below; read their letter to D.A. Lykos here.

Buck was sentenced to death for the 1995 murders of his ex-girlfriend, Debra Gardner, and Kenneth Butler.  During his trial, psychologist Walter Quijano, a witness for the defense, testified on cross-examination that the fact that Buck was African-American increased the likelihood of his being dangerous in the future.  This improperly elicited, racially-based testimony by Dr. Quijano led to new sentencing hearings in six other cases where the State of Texas conceded error – but not for Duane Buck.
The U.S. Supreme Court granted a last-minute stay of execution to Buck on September 15, but today it denied his petition for writ of certiorari. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kagan, dissented.  Read their dissenting opinion.

Read coverage of the case in the Atlantic (“In the End, Supreme Court Says No to Duane Buck,” November 7, 2011).

For Immediate Release
November 7, 2011
Contact: Laura Burstein, laura.burstein@ssd.com or 202-626-6868

More than 60 Civil Rights and Faith Leaders, Elected Officials, Former Prosecutors, and Past ABA Presidents Call On Harris County D.A. to Provide Remedy in Case of Duane Buck

Death Penalty Case Tainted by Racial Bias Now in Hands of Texas State Officials, following Denial by U.S. Supreme Court

(Harris County, Texas; November 7, 2011) Prominent individuals from Texas and across the country are calling on Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos to remedy the sentence in a death penalty case involving the government’s reliance on the defendant’s race at sentencing. Duane Buck was scheduled to be executed on September 15, 2011, when the U.S. Supreme Court intervened. Today, the Court denied Mr. Buck’s petition for writ of certiorari.

 

At Mr. Buck’s capital murder trial in 1997, the State relied upon evidence that African-Americans are more likely to be dangerous as a basis for asking his jury to sentence him to death. District Attorney Lykos now has the discretion to remedy this error.

 

Prominent Texans calling for District Attorney Lykos to provide a remedy include seven members of the Texas Legislature; former Texas Governor Mark White; former Bexar County District Attorney Sam Millsap and Harris County Assistant District Attorney Linda Geffin (who served as a prosecutor in Mr. Buck’s case); seven Past Presidents of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association and current President Earl Musick; President of the Texas NAACP Gary Bledsoe; Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese; Pastor James Nash of Houston Ministers Against Crime; and Southwest Regional Director of the Anti-Defamation League Martin B. Cominsky.

 

In a letter delivered to District Attorney Lykos on September 28, 2011, the signatories wrote: “We write to you today, as elected officials, civil rights leaders, faith leaders, legal professionals, past ABA presidents, a former governor, and concerned citizens dedicated to protecting the integrity of the criminal justice system, to request that you refrain from seeking an execution date in Duane Buck’s case until the parties and courts have been given adequate opportunity and time to address the troubling issues in Mr. Buck’s case. We believe that no one should be executed whose death sentence was based on racially-biased evidence.”

 

Other distinguished signatories include John Payton, Director-Counsel of NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.; Wade Henderson, President and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Deborah Lauter, National Civil Rights Director of the Anti-Defamation League; and past American Bar Association Presidents Philip Anderson, William Ide, Carolyn Lamm, and Roberta Ramo.

 

On May 5, 1997, Mr. Buck was convicted of capital murder in Harris County for the July 1995 shooting deaths of Debra Gardner and Kenneth Butler. A third person, Phyllis Taylor, was shot but survived her wound. Ms. Taylor is also a signatory to the attached letter. She has forgiven Mr. Buck and does not wish to see him executed.

 

During Mr. Buck’s trial, the prosecutor relied on evidence from psychologist Walter Quijano that being an African-American increased the likelihood one would be dangerous in the future. In its closing argument, the government vouched for the credibility of Dr. Quijano’s opinion and urged the jury to rely on it to find that Mr. Buck would be dangerous. The jury found him to be a future danger and he was sentenced to death.  As Justice Sotomayor noted in her dissent from the denial of certiorari, “the prosecution invited the jury to consider race as a factor in sentencing.”

 

On June 9, 2000, while Mr. Buck’s case was pending on appeal, then-Attorney General of Texas John Cornyn issued a press release acknowledging error in the cases of six individuals whose death sentences had been unconstitutionally based on the government’s reliance on race as a factor in sentencing. The Attorney General identified Mr. Buck’s case as one of those six cases. He further stated that Texas would not contest federal appeals in those cases, and stated that if the attorneys for the identified defendants raised claims challenging the government’s reliance on race at sentencing, the Attorney General would waive all procedural defenses available to it.

 

Despite this concession, Mr. Buck is the only defendant of the six identified by Mr. Cornyn who has not been granted a new sentencing trial free from the government’s reliance on his race as a basis for requesting a death sentence.

 

“The use of race in sentencing poisons the legal process and breeds cynicism in the judiciary,” the letter to District Attorney Lykos reads. “Refraining from setting an execution date for Mr. Buck until the courts have a meaningful opportunity to address the fundamental injustice in his case will help restore public confidence in the criminal justice system.”

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