Arise America TV has an interview with NAACP LDF attorney Christina Swarns and former Buck prosecutor Linda Geffin. You can view the archived video; Duane Buck coverage starts at 16:45 into the streaming video.
Jordan Smith writes, "Execution Assembly Line Gets Rolling; 12 executions are currently scheduled through July," for the current edition of the Austin Chronicle. Part of the article focuses on the Buck case.
The issue of racial bias is also central to the ongoing case of Duane Buck, sentenced to death in 1997 for the double murder of Debra Gardner, his former girlfriend, and Kenneth Butler in Houston; a third victim, Phyllis Taylor, survived the attack. Last week, 102 people – including Taylor, 10 members of the Legislature, one former governor, and a former Harris County prosecutor who helped to try his case – signed a letter imploring Harris County D.A. Mike Anderson to grant Buck a new punishment hearing, arguing that his original sentencing was marred by racial bias.
Buck's case is one of seven identified in 2000 by Texas' then-Attorney General John Cornyn as having been tainted at sentencing by racially-biased testimony from psychologist Walter Quijano; Buck is the only defendant not yet granted a new sentencing hearing. In his case, as in two others, Quijano was hired by the defense; he testified that Hispanics and blacks are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. On cross-examination, however, then-prosecutor, now state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, focused Quijano on the race issue: "[T]he race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons; is that correct?"
"Yes," Quijano replied.
Whether a person poses a future danger to others is among three questions jurors must consider before imposing a death sentence. In her closing, Huffman argued that jurors should consider Quijano's judgment as reliable. Buck was ultimately sentenced to death. Signatories to the letter in support of giving Buck a new sentencing hearing suggest that to allow him to die without remedying the tainted sentencing hearing would be to "condone" racial discrimination in the courtroom.
The latest push to get Buck a new hearing comes in anticipation that Anderson would soon seek a new date for Buck's execution. Anderson has said that he will not act – either to agree to a new hearing, or to push for an execution date – before the Court of Criminal Appeals weighs in on the most recent appeal of the case, filed earlier this month, that again seeks a new sentencing hearing. "We are waiting on a ruling and we will act accordingly," he said.
"Texas Officials Pressed for New Sentencing Hearing for Buck," is the South Florida Times report.
Some 102 prominent persons from Texas and around the country have called on Texas officials to provide a new, fair sentencing hearing for Duane Buck, an African American condemned to death even though after his sentencing jury was told that he posed a future danger because of his race.“The State of Texas cannot condone any form of racial discrimination in the courtroom,” their statement says. “The use of race in sentencing poisons the legal process and breeds cynicism in the judiciary. No execution should be carried out until the courts have a meaningful opportunity to address the evidence of fundamental injustice in Mr. Buck’s case. A new, fair sentencing hearing for Mr. Buck is absolutely necessary to restore public confidence in the criminal justice system.”
Those calling for the new hearing include Benjamin Todd Jealous, NAACP President and CEO; Mark White, former governor of Texas; 10 members of the Texas Legislature; 17 former prosecutors and judges from Texas and across the county, including former Harris County Assistant District Attorney Linda Geffin, who served as a prosecutor in the case; American Bar Association President Laurel Bellows and past presidents Philip Anderson, William Ide, Carolyn Lamm and Roberta Ramo; Archbishop Joseph A. Fiorenza of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocese; and several pastors, including the Rev. William A. Lawson of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston.
“The diverse chorus of voices calling for a new, fair sentencing hearing for Duane Buck reflects how Texas’s disturbing appeal to racial bias fundamentally undermines the integrity of the entire criminal justice system and makes each of us less safe,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, director counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund Inc. which represents Buck, along with the Texas Defender Service and attorney Kate Black. “For anyone to trust the criminal justice system, it must be fair to everyone.”
Linda Geffin, one of the Harris County Assistant District Attorneys who prosecuted Duane Buck has started a Change.org petition calling for a new sentencing trial.
At Duane Buck's 1997 capital sentencing hearing in Harris County (Houston), the trial prosecutor elicited testimony from a psychologist that Mr. Buck posted a future danger because he is black. A significant new study finding racial bias in Harris County’s death penalty system was released in an appeal filed by Mr. Buck earlier this month. Mr. Buck challenges his death sentence as an unconstitutional product of racial discrimination and presents research showing that at the time of his 1997 capital trial, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office was over three times more likely to seek the death penalty against African American defendants like himself, than against similarly-situated white defendants. 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, than on similarly situated white defendants.
The NAACP Legal Defense Fund maintains up to date information on the Buck case.
Earlier coverage begins at the link. Related posts are in the race category index.
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