Texas inmate Duane Buck (pic­tured) is one of sev­en death row inmates whose death sen­tences were taint­ed by improp­er racial tes­ti­mo­ny pre­sent­ed at their tri­als. In 2000, then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn (now Senator) con­fessed the state’s error to the U.S. Supreme Court, not­ing that sev­en cas­es had been taint­ed by improp­er pros­e­cu­tion tes­ti­mo­ny. ​“It is inap­pro­pri­ate to allow race to be con­sid­ered as a fac­tor in our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” Cornyn said. ​“The peo­ple of Texas want and deserve a sys­tem that affords the same fair­ness to every­one.” Six inmates received new sen­tenc­ing tri­als, but Buck did not. All sev­en tri­als involved tes­ti­mo­ny by psy­chol­o­gist Walter Quijano, who told juries that defen­dants were more like­ly to com­mit future crimes if they were black or Hispanic. The poten­tial for future dan­ger­ous­ness is a key fac­tor in juries’ sen­tenc­ing deci­sions in Texas. The pros­e­cu­tor at Buck’s sen­tenc­ing tri­al asked Quijano: ​“The race fac­tor, black, increas­es the future dan­ger­ous­ness for var­i­ous com­pli­cat­ed rea­sons; is that cor­rect?” ​“Yes,” Quijano said. Originally, Quijano had been called by the defense and tes­ti­fied that he did not believe Buck would be dan­ger­ous in the future.

According to Andrea Keilen, direc­tor of the Texas Defender Service, ​“It’s very rare to see an attor­ney gen­er­al con­cede error in a cap­i­tal case, much less a series of cap­i­tal cas­es. It should­n’t be con­tro­ver­sial, and yet no one has stepped for­ward” to give Buck a new sen­tenc­ing tri­al. Buck is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on September 15. 

(S. Kreytak, ​“Petition: Condemned man’s sen­tence racial­ly tinged,” Austin American-Statesman, August 31, 2011.) See also Race and Texas. See Press Release from Texas Defender Service.

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