Duane Buck spared lethal injection for double murder after defence
lawyers argue that death sentence was based on racist testimony
Ed Pilkington in Phoenix
Saturday September 17 2011
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/16/duane-buck-execution-stayed-supreme-court
Duane Buck, an inmate on Texas's death row for the past 16 years, has
been spared the lethal injection after the US supreme court stepped in
and stayed his execution on the grounds that the jury at his
sentencing hearing was told he was a danger to the public because he
is black.
The fact that it took the highest court in the nation to prevent the
judicial killing of a prisoner in such controversial circumstances
will put the governor of Texas, Rick Perry, further under the
spotlight. He was earlier approached by lawyers of Buck and exhorted
to use his power to put a 30-day reprieve on the execution to give
time for all parties to look at his case, but Perry did not act.
Perry, a frontrunner for the Republican nomination for next year's
presidential election, has presided over 235 executions since he
became governor in 2000, the most recent just on Tuesday. Last week he
defended his record at a presidential nomination debate at which the
Republican TV audience cheered when the number of those who had died
under him was mentioned. Perry was in Iowa fundraising for his
presidential campaign at the time that the execution was due to have
taken place.
Buck, 48, killed his former girlfriend and a man in 1995. His guilt is
not in dispute, but the fashion in which he was handed out the death
penalty is.
The jury that gave him the ultimate punishment was told by a
psychologist, under prosecution cross-examination, that black people
pose a greater risk to violent reoffending if released from jail. Buck
is an African-American.
The evidence of the psychologist, Dr Walter Quijano, was recognised as
a huge legal problem by Texas's then attorney general John Cornyn in
2000. Six other cases in which Quijano had given racially-tinged
testimony were identified and all of them were awarded a resentencing
hearing. On legal technicalities, Buck has been awarded no such
safeguard.
The intervention of the US supreme court gives the prisoner one last
chance to plead for commutation of his sentence to life imprisonment.
When Buck was informed that he was to live, at least for a little
while longer, he said: "Praise the Lord! God is worthy to be praised.
God's mercy triumphs over judgment. I feel good."
Kate Black, Buck's lawyer, welcomed the court's decision: "We are
relieved that the US supreme court recognised the obvious injustice of
allowing a defendant's race to factor into sentencing decisions and
granted a stay of execution to Duane Buck," she said.
"No one should be put to death based on the colour of his or her skin.
We are confident that the court will agree that our client is entitled
to a fair sentencing hearing that is untainted by considerations of
his race."
The issue of the death penalty is by no means at an end in Texas,
however. The state executes more people each year than any other state
in the nation, and has two executions scheduled for next week.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2011
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