Supreme Court Grants Relief to Duane Buck in Texas Racial Bias Death Penalty Case

Saying that the ​“law pun­ish­es peo­ple for what they do, not who they are,” the Supreme Court on February 22, 2017, grant­ed relief to Duane Buck (pic­tured, right), a Texas death-row pris­on­er who was sen­tenced to death after his own lawyer pre­sent­ed tes­ti­mo­ny from a psy­chol­o­gist who told the jury Buck was more like­ly to com­mit future acts of vio­lence because he is black. Writing for the six-Justice major­i­ty, Chief Justice Roberts (pic­tured, left) said that “[d]ispensing pun­ish­ment on the basis of an immutable char­ac­ter­is­tic flat­ly con­tra­venes this guiding principle.” 

Buck’s case turned on the legal ques­tion of whether his lawyer had pro­vid­ed inef­fec­tive assis­tance. The Court left no doubt on the issue. Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “[n]o com­pe­tent defense attor­ney would intro­duce such evi­dence about his own client.” 

Despite coun­sel’s defi­cient rep­re­sen­ta­tion, the low­er fed­er­al courts had refused to inter­vene, assert­ing that the ref­er­ences to race in the case had been brief and would have had only min­i­mal, if any, effect on the jury’s sen­tenc­ing deci­sion. The Chief Justice square­ly reject­ed that con­clu­sion, writ­ing: ​“when a jury hears expert tes­ti­mo­ny that express­ly makes a defendant’s race direct­ly per­ti­nent on the ques­tion of life or death, the impact of that evi­dence can­not be mea­sured sim­ply by how much air time it received at tri­al or how many pages it occu­pies in the record. Some tox­ins can be dead­ly in small dos­es.” The Court explained that stereo­typ­ing black men as some­how more vio­lence-prone than oth­ers is a ​“par­tic­u­lar­ly nox­ious strain of racial prejudice.” 

Buck’s attor­ney, Christina Swarns, who had argued the case before the Court in October 2016, said ​“Today, the Supreme Court made clear that there is no place for racial bias in the American crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.” The deci­sion, she said, reaf­firms ​“the long­stand­ing prin­ci­ple that crim­i­nal pun­ish­ments — par­tic­u­lar­ly the death penal­ty — can­not be based on immutable char­ac­ter­is­tics such as race.” 

Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, dissented.

(L. Hurley, ​“U.S. top court backs Texas death row inmate in race case,” Reuters, February 22, 2017; P. Williams, ​“Supreme Court Says Racial Testimony Biased Sentencing,” NBC News, February 22, 2017; ​“SCOTUS Rules Duane Buck Entitled to New Sentencing Hearing in Texas Racial Bias Death Penalty Case,” Press Release from Duane Buck Defense Lawyers, February 22, 2017.) Read the opin­ion.