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executions U.S. Supreme Court

TCADP July 2020 Newsletter: “Future dangerousness” and the Texas death penalty

In this edition  Reflections on race and “future dangerousness” in the Texas death penalty Scheduled executions: State of Texas seeks to execute Billy Joe Wardlow for a crime he committed […]

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Future Dangerousness racial bias

Race and “future dangerousness” in the Texas death penalty

Many of Texas’s most troubling death penalty cases are rooted in a corrosive system of racism fostered by predictions of future dangerousness, a unique facet of our state’s capital punishment statute.

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death sentences executions TCADP Annual Report

Texas Death Penalty Developments in 2017: The Year in Review

Executions and death sentences remained near-historic lows in 2017, according to a new report from the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (TCADP). Texas executed only seven people in 2017, matching 2016 for the lowest number of executions in two decades, and jurors voted for death in only four cases. For the first time since 1985, Harris County was not responsible for any of this year’s executions.

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Duane Buck racial bias

Duane Buck removed from death row; racial bias tainted case

In a court hearing in Harris County on Tuesday, October 3, 2017, Duane Buck pled guilty to two counts of attempted murder, including the shooting of his stepsister, in a deal […]

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Amplify Austin executions TCADP Annual Conference

TCADP 2017 March Alert: Time to Amplify Abolition!

In this edition of our monthly newsletter, you’ll find information about the two executions scheduled to occur in Texas in March, a recap of our recent annual conference, and links to an important opinion piece on a Dallas County death penalty case and a new statement opposing capital punishment from the American Nurses Association.

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Duane Buck U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court rules that Duane Buck deserves new sentencing hearing

Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas death row inmate Duane Buck is entitled to a new sentencing hearing. Buck was sentenced to death after a Houston jury heard false and unconstitutional testimony from a defense “expert” that he was more likely to be a future danger because he is black.

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death penalty Duane Buck Texas U.S. Supreme Court

SCOTUS Likely to Find Racial Bias in Case of Duane Buck

On October 5, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments describing racial bias in the death penalty case of Duane Buck. Duane Buck was condemned to death in 1997, after his […]

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Duane Buck U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Case of Duane Buck Involving Racial Bias

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Buck v. Stephens, a Texas death penalty case raising extraordinary issues of racial bias. Duane Buck was condemned to death in 1997 in Harris County after his own trial attorneys inexplicably introduced testimony from a psychologist who stated that Buck was more likely to be dangerous in the future because he is Black.