HOUSTON (AP) - A divided Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has rejected an appeal from a convicted killer in a Houston case where supporters contend his death sentence unfairly was based on race.
The state's highest criminal court Wednesday refused an appeal from 50-year-old condemned inmate Duane Buck. Buck was convicted of the slaying of his ex-girlfriend and a man at her Houston apartment in July 1995.
During the punishment phase of his 1997 trial, a psychologist testifying for the defense said black people were more likely to commit violence. Advocates for Buck, who is black, say that unfairly influenced the jury, is grounds for a new sentencing hearing and should have been pursued vigorously by lawyers early in the appeals process.
Three of the nine appeals court judges joined in a dissent.
Source: AP, November 20, 2013
Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denies Duane Buck's appeal for a new sentencing hearing free from racial bias
Statement from Attorneys for Duane Buck in Response to Today's Ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
“We are gravely disappointed that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals
has dismissed Duane Buck’s appeal and failed to recognize that his death
sentence is the unconstitutional
product of racial discrimination. As noted by three members of the
Court, ‘[t]he record in this case reveals a chronicle of inadequate
representation at every stage of the proceedings, the integrity of which
is further called into question by the admission of racist and
inflammatory testimony from an expert witness at the punishment stage.’
These judges recognized that this outcome ‘jeopardizes both the
integrity of the underlying conviction and of this Court’s judicial
processes’ and deprives Mr. Buck of ‘one full and fair opportunity to
present his claims.’
“With today’s decision, Texas has once
again reneged on its promise to ensure that Mr. Buck would not be
executed pursuant to a death sentence that was the unfair product of a
prosecutorial appeal to racial bias and stereotype. ,For this reason,
more than one hundred civil rights leaders, clergy of various faiths,
former judges, former prosecutors, and thousands of individuals in Texas
and across the world, have joined our call for a new, fair, and
colorblind sentencing for Duane Buck. We now urge the Harris County
District Attorney’s Office to respect these calls and refrain from
seeking an execution date for Mr. Buck. We will ask the U.S. Supreme
Court to review the important due process and equal protection issues at
stake in Mr. Buck’s case, and we are hopeful that the Supreme Court
will intervene to right this unequivocal wrong.”
- Attorneys Kate
Black, Christina Swarns (Director of the Criminal Justice Practice at
NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund), and Kathryn Kase (Executive
Director of Texas Defender Service), November 20, 2013
CASE BACKGROUND:
At Mr. Buck’s 1997 capital sentencing hearing in Harris County, Texas,
the trial prosecutor elicited testimony from a psychologist that Mr.
Buck posed a future danger because he is black. The prosecutor relied on
this testimony in arguing in favor of a death sentence. The jury then
found Mr. Buck would be a future danger and sentenced him to death.
In 2000, 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 testimony linking
race to future dangerousness, including Mr. Buck’s. The Attorney General
promised not to oppose attempts to get new sentencing hearings for the
seven identified defendants. All have received new sentencing hearings –
except for Mr. Buck.
New research shows that at the time of
Mr. Buck’s trial, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office was over
three times more likely to seek the death penalty against African
American defendants than against similarly-situated white defendants in
cases like Mr. Buck’s and Harris County juries were more than twice as
likely to impose death sentences on African American defendants in cases
like Mr. Buck’s.
Mr. Buck’s case has sparked outrage from the
civil rights community and other prominent individuals in Harris County
and across the country. More than 100 civil rights leaders, elected
officials, former prosecutors, former Governor Mark White and faith
leaders agree that Mr. Buck must be granted a new sentencing hearing
where race is not a consideration. One of the trial prosecutors, Linda
Geffin, and the surviving victim, Phyllis Taylor, are among those urging
the State to give Mr. Buck a new sentencing hearing. Ms. Taylor has
explained, “I have forgiven Duane and could not bear to see him
executed. I pray that his life be spared.”
In addition, over
50,000 people from Texas and around the country have signed a petition
calling on Texas officials to grant Mr. Buck a new sentencing hearing. https://www.change.org/petitions/sentenced-to-death-because-he-is-black-grant-duane-buck-a-new-hearing
Mr. Buck’s life was spared by the U.S. Supreme Court before his
September 2011 scheduled execution. Two U.S. Supreme Court justices
agreed that Mr. Buck’s death sentence requires review because “our
criminal justice system should not tolerate” a death sentence “marred by
racial overtones."
