"Yet testimony about the "future dangerousness" of death penalty defendants still keeps the gears of Texas' execution machine turning. This week, Houstonian Duane Buck is scheduled for execution, partly based on testimony by Conroe psychologist Dr. Walter Quijano.
The race factor
Ironically, Quijano was called to the witness stand by defense attorneys for Buck. Though he was found guilty of a deadly shooting rampage, his attorneys hoped to prove the tragedy, in which Buck's estranged girlfriend and another man were killed, was an act of rage not likely to be repeated.
But under cross-examination, Quijano acknowledged to prosecutors that certain factors are associated with violent crime. For instance, the prosecutor asked, "The race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons; is that correct?"
"Yes," Quijano replied.
The jury concluded that Buck, a black man, would continue to be violent, and sentenced him to death.
Quijano gave similar testimony in six other cases, which, along with Buck's, were all red-flagged in 2000 by then-Attorney General John Cornyn. Rather than defend the cases on appeal, an appalled Cornyn conceded error, clearing the way for new trials for six of the seven.
PATRICIA KILDAY HART; HOUSTON CHRONICLE; (Patricia Kilday Hart has written about Texas politics for nearly 20 years. She has contributed to TEXAS MONTHLY's "Ten Best, Ten Worst Legislators" story since 1989 and worked as a reporter in the Dallas Times Herald's Texas Capitol bureau. She is a journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin).
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"Dr. Death. It was a fitting nickname for the tall gentleman with a spectral complexion who haunted the corridors of the Dallas County Courthouse in the 1980s," the Houston Chronicle column by Patricia Kilday Hart published earlier today under the heading, "Where's justice in the execution process?" begins.
"Summoned by prosecutors to testify in more than 100 capital murder cases, Dr. James Grigson delivered his diagnosis with creepy Marcus Welby-ish solemnity. Sometimes without having met a defendant, he'd confirm what prosecutors needed jurors to hear - that the miscreant posed a continuing threat to society," the column continues.
"He checked an important box for prosecutors who, under Texas' death penalty law, had to prove to juries that the "future dangerousness" of a defendant warranted execution. Without his testimony, the cases would have been run-of-the-mill murders with ordinary prison sentences.
That he made a career of such testimony would ultimately earn him a denunciation by the American Psychiatric Association. His reputation was further sullied when his pronouncements turned out to be dead wrong.
Consider Randall Dale Adams, who once came within three days of execution for a murder he did not commit. At his 1977 trial for the shooting death of a Dallas police officer, Grigson declared Adams possessed a "sociopathic personality disorder" that would surely drive him to kill again. The subject of the acclaimed documentary The Thin Blue Line, Adams would later be exonerated.
Yet testimony about the "future dangerousness" of death penalty defendants still keeps the gears of Texas' execution machine turning. This week, Houstonian Duane Buck is scheduled for execution, partly based on testimony by Conroe psychologist Dr. Walter Quijano.
The race factor
Ironically, Quijano was called to the witness stand by defense attorneys for Buck. Though he was found guilty of a deadly shooting rampage, his attorneys hoped to prove the tragedy, in which Buck's estranged girlfriend and another man were killed, was an act of rage not likely to be repeated.
But under cross-examination, Quijano acknowledged to prosecutors that certain factors are associated with violent crime. For instance, the prosecutor asked, "The race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons; is that correct?"
"Yes," Quijano replied.
The jury concluded that Buck, a black man, would continue to be violent, and sentenced him to death.
Quijano gave similar testimony in six other cases, which, along with Buck's, were all red-flagged in 2000 by then-Attorney General John Cornyn. Rather than defend the cases on appeal, an appalled Cornyn conceded error, clearing the way for new trials for six of the seven.
Seeking clemency
Not for Buck, whose attorneys waited two and a half years to raise the issue. By then, Attorney General Greg Abbott had replaced Cornyn, and the state had decided that Buck's case differed from others tainted by the race issue.
For one thing, the defense attorneys, not the prosecutors, put Quijano on the stand. For another, evidence suggested that Buck had been violent with another girlfriend. For those reasons, on Friday, Abbott opposed Buck's request for a stay of execution in a Houston federal court. The court agreed with Abbott, and denied the stay.
Last week, Buck's appellate attorneys filed a motion for clemency with the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, which could recommend that Gov. Rick Perry commute Buck's sentence to life without parole.
The case exposes structural flaws in our death penalty law. Testimony involving "junk science" regarding arson has been allowed, as demonstrated in the Cameron Todd Willingham case. There is mounting evidence that eyewitness testimony is unreliable.
As a young reporter, I watched a tearful widow identify a Dallas woman, Joyce Ann Brown, as her husband's shooter, guaranteeing a death verdict. Brown was later exonerated, but she spent her daughter's childhood behind bars. I also pity the widow, who surely did not intentionally compound the tragedy of her husband's death by ruining Brown's life.
Applause for deaths
During Wednesday's presidential debate, NBC anchorman Brian Williams prefaced a question by noting that as governor, Perry had overseen 234 executions. The audience erupted in applause. Williams forged on: "Have you struggled to sleep at night with the idea that any one of those might have been innocent?"
"No, sir," said Perry. In Texas, he assured Williams, the process precludes mistakes.
He's wrong. Human frailty - on the part of prosecutors, judges, jurors, police officers, victims, defense attorneys - courses through our criminal justice system. According to the Innocence Project, 273 Americans have been exonerated since the advent of DNA testing, and 166 of them were African-American. Shouldn't those statistics trigger a little insomnia?
Yet Texas continues to outpace the nation in executions, with 473 since the law was reinstated in 1976; Virginia is the closest next state at a mere 109. The state of Texas soon may execute Duane Buck because 12 human beings, vested with all the flaws that implies, decided he was beyond redemption. A real leader would turn his back on the campaign trail lynch mob and call a moratorium on executions based on such shaky ground."
The column can be found at:http://www.chron.com/news/kilday-hart/article/Where-s-justice-in-the-execution-process-2163606.php
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
