Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Denies New Hearing for Duane Buck

In a 6-3 decision on November 20, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied a request from death row inmate Duane Buck for a new sentencing hearing, despite the fact that racially prejudicial statements had been made during his trial. While the jury was being asked to consider if Buck would be a future danger to society, a psychologist testified that African Americans commit a disproportionate number of criminal offenses. Buck’s case was one of seven identified in 2000 by then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn in which testimony linking race to future dangerousness was impermissibly used. The other six defendants received new sentencing hearings, but Buck did not because his case was still in the early stages of appeal. Three judges dissented, writing, “The 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.” Buck’s attorneys said they will appeal: “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,” they said.

(M. Graczyk, “Split Texas court rejects condemned man’s appeal,” Associated Press, November 20, 2013). See Arbitrariness and Race. Read the dissenting opinion, Ex parte Duane Edward Buck, No. WR-57,004-03; read the Press Release from Duane Buck’s attorneys (Nov. 20, 2013).