The prosecutor's letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles is available in Adobe .pdf format.
Texas Defender Service has issued a news release, "Prosecutor in Case Where Government Relied on Race Testimony at Trial Urges Texas Officials to Stop Duane Buck's Execution."
Houston, Texas, September 12, 2011 - Today, a former Harris County Assistant District Attorney who prosecuted Duane Buck is urging state officials to halt Mr. Buck's execution next week because "[n]o individual should be executed without being afforded a fair trial, untainted by considerations of race." Linda Geffin, who served as second-chair prosecutor in the State of Texas vs. Duane Buck in 1997, sent a letter this morning to Governor Rick Perry, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Attorney General Greg Abbott, and Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos, urging them to intervene and stop Mr. Buck?s September 15 execution.
In her letter, Ms. Geffin says she "felt compelled to step forward" after reading about the clemency petition and a motion in federal court recognizing that former Attorney General John Cornyn had previously acknowledged the "improper injection of race in the sentencing hearing in Mr. Buck's case."
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 also shot, but survived her wound. Ms. Taylor has forgiven Mr. Buck and does not want him executed.
During Mr. Buck's trial, psychologist Walter Quijano testified, based on several factors, that he did not believe Mr. Buck would be dangerous in the future. On cross-examination, the prosecutor elicited improper testimony from Dr. Quijano that the fact that Mr. Buck was African-American increased the likelihood of his being dangerous in the future. The State urged the jury in its closing argument to rely on Dr. Quijano's testimony. The jury did so, found that Mr. Buck would be a future danger, and he was sentenced to death.
After Mr. Buck's trial, but while his case was pending on appeal, on June 9, 2000, in a highly-unusual move, then-Attorney General John Cornyn issued a press release calling for the retrial of six individuals who had been sentenced to death based on improper introduction of, and reliance on, race as a factor in sentencing. The Attorney General identified Mr. Buck's case as one of those six cases, stated that Texas would not contest federal appeals in those six cases, and that if the attorneys for the six identified defendants raised claims challenging the government's reliance on race at sentencing, the Attorney General would not object.
Then-Attorney General Cornyn first confessed error based on the government's reliance on Dr. Quijano's testimony in the case of Victor Saldaño. The Attorney General stated: "As I explained in a filing before the United States Supreme Court...it is inappropriate to allow race to be considered as a factor in our criminal justice system....[T]he United States Supreme Court agreed. The people of Texas want and deserve a system that affords the same fairness to everyone."
Despite this concession, the improper racial testimony in Mr. Buck's case has not been redressed. Mr. Buck is the only one of the six death row inmates identified by the Attorney General who was not granted an opportunity to have a colorblind sentencing.
The clemency petition, which was filed on August 31, asks the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and Governor Perry to intervene. In it, attorneys for Mr. Buck state: "Five out of the six cases in which Attorney General John Cornyn conceded error resulted in new sentencing hearings. Mr. Buck has not received the same corrective process. The State of Texas cannot and should not tolerate an execution on the basis of an individual?s race, particularly where this State?s highest legal officer has acknowledged the error, not only in similarly situated cases, but in this case."
Ms. Geffin?s letter concludes: "I now join Phyllis Taylor, the surviving victim, in asking for the intervention of the Board of Pardons and Paroles, Governor Rick Perry, Attorney General Greg Abbott and Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos. All of these parties should be motivated, as I am, to do everything within their power to ensure that our justice system is not tainted by unconstitutional considerations of race."
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The clemency petition and an interview with surviving victim Phyllis Taylor can both be viewed.at:
Steven Kreytak posts, "Harris County prosecutor asks for halt to execution," for the Austin American-Statesman.
A prosecutor who worked to secure the death sentence against a Harris County killer scheduled to be executed on Thursday is asking officials to stop the execution.
Linda Geffin, who was the second chair prosecutor in the 1997 prosecution of Duane Buck and is now a supervisor in the Harris County Attorney’s office, has joined Buck’s lawyers in declaring that his sentencing hearing was unfair because of racially tinged testimony.
Buck was one of seven state death row inmates who then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn in 2000 said received unfair sentencing trials because of the testimony of psychologist Walter Quijano. Quijano regularly told juries that defendants were more likely to commit future criminal acts because they were black or Hispanic, testimony he based on the fact that blacks and Hispanics are overrepresented in the Texas prison system when compared with the state’s general population.
Six defendants identified by Cornyn as having their trials tainted by Quijano’s testimony have since received new sentencing trials. Each was once again sentenced to death. Buck, who killed two people, including his ex girlfriend, in 1995, has not received a new sentencing hearing.
Buck’s lawyers with the Texas Defender Service have filed a clemency petition with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles and have asked Gov. Rick Perry, current Attorney General Greg Abbott and Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos to intervene and stop the execution. They have also asked a federal judge to intervene.
"Former prosecutor in Duane Buck case asks state to halt execution," is the title of Sommer Ingram's Dallas Morning News post.
A former prosecutor in death-row inmate Duane Buck's case is urging state officials to stop the execution scheduled for Thursday.
Linda Geffin, former Harris County District Attorney who served as second-chair prosecutor in Buck's case, this morning sent a letter to state officials saying that Buck's execution cannot go forward because of the racially-tainted testimony that was a part of his trial.
"No individual should be executed without being afforded a fair trial, untainted by considerations of race," Geffin wrote in the letter addressed to Gov. Rick Perry , the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, Attorney General Greg Abbott and current Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos.
Buck fatally shot two people and injured another in 1995. During his trial in 1997, psychologist Walter Quijano told jurors that Buck was more likely to be violent in the future because he was black. His case was one of seven that former Texas Attorney General John Cornyn wanted reviewed because of the state's unconstitutional reliance on race.
New punishment hearings were ordered for all six other cases, but Buck's slipped through the cracks in what his attorneys call another mishandling of the death penalty in Texas. They argue that Buck can't be put to death when being black is part of what secured his sentence.
Earlier coverage of Duane Buck's case begins with the preceding post.
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