"It appears the justices were wrestling over which side injected racially tinged testimony at Buck's sentencing and whether the answer to that question essentially sealed his fate.
But the court seems to have missed the point: Race shouldn't sway a jury's decision about whether a convicted killer receives the death penalty, and the possibility that it might have in Buck's case justifies a new hearing.
This isn't a matter of sympathy but of fairness."
EDITORIAL: THE STAR-TELEGRAM;
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BACKGROUND: Duane Buck was convicted of murder in 1997. He is African American. At the sentencing phase of his trial, an expert witness named Walter Quijano said “yes” when asked if “the race factor, black,” increased the chances that Mr. Buck would do something dangerous again. In Texas, this is a pivotal issue: if the state does not prove “future dangerousness” beyond a reasonable doubt, it cannot sentence a convict to death. The prosecution got the answer it wanted. The jury sentenced Mr. Buck to death. In 2000, John Cornyn, then the attorney general of Texas and now a U.S. Senator, called for six death row inmates in the state to have new hearings because race was improperly used as a factor in sentencing each of them. “It is inappropriate to allow race to be considered as a factor in our criminal justice system,” he said. Mr. Buck was the only one of the six who did not get a new hearing. Mr. Cornyn’s successor as attorney general treated Mr. Buck’s case differently because Mr. Buck, “not the state, offered” the testimony in which race figured prominently. Justice Alito agreed. It was Mr. Buck’s lawyer, he wrote, who elicited “the race-related testimony on direct examination.” That is accurate, and a majority of Supreme Court justices found this logic convincing, but it is also misleading. As Justice Sotomayor explained (and I’m lifting from her written dissent here), during the penalty phase of Mr. Buck’s trial, the defense called a psychologist, Walter Quijano, as a witness. Mr. Quijano testified that there were several “statistical factors we know to predict future dangerousness,” including past crimes, age, sex, race, socioeconomic status, employment stability, and substance abuse history. Mr. Quijano also said: “It’s a sad commentary that minorities, Hispanics and black people, are over represented in the Criminal Justice System.” But when the defense asked Mr. Quijano whether Mr. Buck was likely to commit violent criminal acts if he were sentenced to life imprisonment, Mr. Quijano replied, “The probability of that happening in prison would be low.” Only during cross-examination did the fact of Mr. Buck’s race truly become linked with the possibility that he would commit another crime. After inquiring about how past crimes and age might (statistically) indicate future dangerousness in Mr. Buck’s case, the prosecutor said: “You have determined that the sex factor, that a male is more violent than a female because that’s just the way it is, and that the race factor, black, increases the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons; is that correct?” Mr. Quijano answered, “Yes.” Later, the prosecutor argued to the jury that Mr. Quijano “told you that there was a probability that [Buck] would commit future acts of violence.” The jury returned a verdict of death. Lincoln Caplan: New York Times); (The Supreme Court issued a stay of execution but, in a decision issued in November, 2011 declined to order a new hearing.)
----------------------------------------------------------"The U.S. Supreme Court delayed the execution of Texas Death Row inmate Duane Buck on Sept. 15 to review his request for a new punishment hearing, but on Monday the justices announced they wouldn't look further into his constitutional claims," the Star-Telegram editorial published on November 7, 2011 under the heading "Buck case involved a terrible crime but a flawed capital sentencing process," begins.
The story can be found at:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/11/07/3507584/buck-case-involved-a-terrible.html
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;
