Defense Lawyers, Former Prosecutors, and Constitutional Rights Groups File Amicus Briefs in Buck v. Davis

Five groups, rep­re­sent­ing defense lawyers, for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, and orga­ni­za­tions devot­ed to pro­tect­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al lib­er­ties have filed ami­cus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court in sup­port of Texas death row pris­on­er Duane Buck. Buck was sen­tenced to death when a psy­chi­a­trist pre­sent­ed by his own lawyer said he posed a greater poten­tial dan­ger to soci­ety because he is Black, and the case attained wide­spread noto­ri­ety after the new Texas attor­ney gen­er­al failed to hon­or a com­mit­ment by his pre­de­ces­sor not to oppose a new sentencing hearing. 

On August 4, the National and Texas Associations of Criminal Defense Lawyers, a group of for­mer pros­e­cu­tors, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and the Constitutional Accountability Center joined the National Black Law Students Association (NBLSA) in sub­mit­ting briefs argu­ing that Buck’s rights were vio­lat­ed by the racial argu­ments made at his tri­al. The NBLSA said, ​“Whether by a judge, a pros­e­cu­tor, or defense coun­sel, an appeal to a jury based on racial prej­u­dice poi­sons our sys­tem of jus­tice.” The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law stat­ed, ​“Mr. Buck was enti­tled to have his dan­ger­ous­ness assessed on an indi­vid­u­al­ized basis based on his per­son­al attrib­ut­es. Instead he received a death sen­tence taint­ed by four hun­dred years of racial stereo­typ­ing invoked by a wit­ness who was sup­posed to tes­ti­fy on his behalf.” 

The for­mer state and fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors, who include for­mer Texas Governor and Attorney General Mark White, for­mer Attorneys General from Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Ohio, and the sec­ond-chair pros­e­cu­tor from Buck’s tri­al, high­light­ed Texas’ refusal to pro­vide Buck a new sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, even though it had includ­ed him on a list of defen­dants whose tri­als were taint­ed by sim­i­lar tes­ti­mo­ny by the same psy­chol­o­gist, and every oth­er one of those defen­dants had received new sen­tenc­ing hear­ings. ​“To back­track on an eth­i­cal oblig­a­tion and deci­sion to grant relief to a defen­dant in any con­text is extra­or­di­nary; it is par­tic­u­lar­ly so here, where the pur­pose of back­track­ing was to defend the pro­pri­ety of a cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing hear­ing taint­ed by racist tes­ti­mo­ny,” they said. 

The Court is sched­uled to hear argu­ment in Buck v. Davis on October 5.