Texas is unique in its reliance on predictions of future behavior in determining death sentences. To be sentenced to death in Texas, the jury must find that, "there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society.”
The state usually relies on expert witnesses who testify that the defendant will be a future danger. Sometimes these expert witnesses are psychologist. It should first be noted that the American Psychological Association rejects the notion, and has sanctioned members who have provided such testimony.
Taking the prediction to an even greater length, clinic psychologist Walter Quijano testified in a small number of Texas cases that since minorities comprise a disproportionately large percentage of the prison population that fact alone indicates they are likely to be dangerous.
The introduction of race and ethnicity into the mix was too much even for then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn. In 2000, amid protests from some district attorneys, Cornyn confessed error to the U.S. Supreme Court in one of those cases involving Texas death row inmate Victor Saldano.
Another of those Quijano testified against is returning to a state district court next year for a new punishment phase hearing. "State AG to handle resentencing phase," is the AP headline via the Houston Chronicle.
At the recommendation of the attorney general, the Ector County District Attorney's Office recused itself from the case of Michael Dean Gonzales, the Odessa American reported in a story for Tuesday editions.
District Attorney Bobby Bland had asked for the AG's advice because Ector County's first assistant district attorney was once married to the lead investigator in Gonzales' case. Bland said the request was prompted by a death penalty case under scrutiny in Collin County because the prosecutor and trial judge had an affair.
"The (attorney general) recommended that my office recuse itself from that case so there wouldn't be an affect on the case if it were to be appealed," Bland said.
Gonzales was convicted of the April 21, 1994, slaying of Manuel Aguirre, 73, and his wife Merced, 65, during a break-in at their Odessa home. The laborer and gang member was sentenced to death.
He is among a half-dozen Texas death row inmates to receive a new punishment trial because of testimony by Walter Quijano, former chief psychologist for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. In those cases, Quijano cited race and ethnicity as among several reasons a defendant was a future danger to society. A jury must decide if a convicted murderer is a future threat to impose the death sentence.
In June 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a death sentence in another Texas case because Quijano made what the high court said was improper race-based testimony during the penalty phase of a trial.
More on the issue is in the post, Eric Nenno and Texas Clemency. This reliance on predictions of future behavior was the subject of Texas Defender Service's, "Deadly Speculation: Misleading Texas Capital Juries with False Predictions of Future Dangerousness." It was published in 2004.
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