Thursday, June 22, 2017

Dwayne Buck: Texas: Who Is Dangerous, and Who Dies? Dr. James Grigson? (AKA Dr. Death) Dr. Walter Quijano? Other experts who routinely found that a defendant posed a risk of future dangerousness? Errol Morris notes that "an appalling and racialized standard of “future dangerousness” has found its way into American courts. (Morris focuses on Duane Buck and Cristina Swarns, his hard-hitting attorney who has fought this 'life and death' madness in the courts..."I first became involved with all this while making my film “The Thin Blue Line.” I had read about Dr. James Grigson, an expert witness regularly called by the state of Texas. Some referred to him as “Dr. Death” because he would routinely find that the defendant posed a risk of future dangerousness, and thus should be executed. I met with Dr. Grigson in 1985, and on his recommendation I started interviewing Texas death row inmates. Among those Dr. Grigson had testified posed a risk of future dangerousness was Randall Dale Adams, a convicted cop killer — or at least, so it seemed. My film was finished, and Mr. Adams was exonerated. I had thought — stupidly, it turned out — that Dr. Grigson had been put out of business. Not so. The “dangerousness” provision of the Texas law remained very much in place. But I forgot about it. I had done my fair share of good — got an innocent man out of prison. Then, not long ago, I read about the case of Buck v. Davis, decided by the Supreme Court on Feb. 22. Duane Buck had been convicted of capital murder in 1997. He killed his ex-girlfriend and one of her friends. The details of the crime are appalling, but no less appalling is that Dr. Walter Quijano discussed Mr. Buck’s race as a factor in determining his future dangerousness. African-Americans, Dr. Quijano argued, are more likely to commit acts of violence. Though Dr. Quijano opined that Mr. Buck was not a risk of future dangerousness, his testimony about race remained an element for the jury to consider. Dr. Quijano has given similar testimony in other death penalty cases since 1991."


COMMENTARY: "Who Is Dangerous, and Who Dies? An appalling and racialized standard of “future dangerousness” has been used to condemn defendants. This lawyer fought it," by Errol Morris, published by The New York Times on June 7, 2017. (Errol Morris is a writer and filmmaker. He lives with his wife and French bulldog in Cambridge.)

GIST: "The death penalty, like abortion, is one of those hot-button topics that keeps popping up into the public consciousness, a roach motel for meretricious ideas and bad public policy — including racism. I would bet that if it involved putting white people to death for killing black people, it would have been abolished years ago. Still, it persists. Except our society — until recently — has come to believe that overt expressions of racism might not be a good thing. Better to keep a fig leaf over it than to explore its underbelly. In 1972, the Supreme Court found in the 5-4 decision of Furman v. Georgia that the death penalty as practiced in this country was unconstitutional under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. But the majority couldn’t agree on a rationale for its decision, so instead of one majority opinion, five separate concurrences were produced. While Justices Brennan and Marshall found the death penalty itself to be cruel and unusual punishment, Justices Stewart, White and Douglas focused on its arbitrariness, leaving the door wide open for states to rejigger their statutes and return to executions. In 1973, Texas did just that — the sentencing phase of a capital trial was separated from the guilt phase, and the jury was asked to consider “whether there is a probability that the defendant would commit criminal acts of violence that would constitute a continuing threat to society [future dangerousness].” In response to the Furman decision, Governor Preston Smith commuted the death sentences of 52 inmates in Texas, clearing out death row entirely. In 1976, consolidating cases from five different states (Georgia, Florida, Texas, North Carolina and Louisiana), the court in Gregg v. Georgia found that the death penalty was not unconstitutional in every case. Executions in Texas, now by lethal injection — Old Sparky, the Texas electric chair, had been retired — started back up in 1982. I first became involved with all this while making my film “The Thin Blue Line.” I had read about Dr. James Grigson, an expert witness regularly called by the state of Texas. Some referred to him as “Dr. Death” because he would routinely find that the defendant posed a risk of future dangerousness, and thus should be executed. I met with Dr. Grigson in 1985, and on his recommendation I started interviewing Texas death row inmates. Among those Dr. Grigson had testified posed a risk of future dangerousness was Randall Dale Adams, a convicted cop killer — or at least, so it seemed. My film was finished, and Mr. Adams was exonerated. I had thought — stupidly, it turned out — that Dr. Grigson had been put out of business. Not so. The “dangerousness” provision of the Texas law remained very much in place. But I forgot about it. I had done my fair share of good — got an innocent man out of prison. Then, not long ago, I read about the case of Buck v. Davis, decided by the Supreme Court on Feb. 22. Duane Buck had been convicted of capital murder in 1997. He killed his ex-girlfriend and one of her friends. The details of the crime are appalling, but no less appalling is that Dr. Walter Quijano discussed Mr. Buck’s race as a factor in determining his future dangerousness. African-Americans, Dr. Quijano argued, are more likely to commit acts of violence. Though Dr. Quijano opined that Mr. Buck was not a risk of future dangerousness, his testimony about race remained an element for the jury to consider. Dr. Quijano has given similar testimony in other death penalty cases since 1991. Prompted by the Supreme Court’s decision in Saldaño v. Texas (2000), which vacated the sentence of Victor Hugo Saldaño because Dr. Quijano had testified that Mr. Saldaño’s Hispanic ethnicity made him a greater risk of future dangerousness, State Attorney General John Cornyn promised that his office would not object if the other defendants (Mr. Buck among them) sought to overturn their death sentences based on Dr. Quijano’s testimony. In Mr. Buck’s case, though, they did object, claiming that since it was the defense attorney who put Dr. Quijano on the stand and allowed his testimony into the record without objection, the State of Texas owed the defendant nothing. I called Mr. Buck’s attorney Christina Swarns, litigation director of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund Inc., to discuss the case....(Read on  at the link below for a fascinating discussion  between Errol Morris and Christina Swarns. HL) And so we’re back where we started, except things have gotten worse. We have elected a president who invokes future dangerousness with respect to country of national origin (and also religion). In 1977 it was Dr. Grigson and sociopathy; in 1997, Dr. Quijano and race; and now it is Donald Trump and a list of six countries. Think of it as a very thinly disguised form of racism against Muslims. Christina Swarns sent me several legal briefs submitted to the Supreme Court in support of Buck, among them, a brief from the National Black Law Students Association. “Whether by a judge, a prosecutor or defense counsel, an appeal to a jury based on racial prejudice poisons our system of justice.” And from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: “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 400 years of racial stereotyping.” Notwithstanding, the concept of dangerousness is alive and well. It took an egregious error to call it into question in Duane Buck’s case. But it should have been ruled as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1976 (under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments) and should be seen as unconstitutional today. Admittedly, there is a difference between a court of law and a presidential order involving immigration. But under any circumstance, should public policy be held hostage to racial and religious discrimination?"

The entire commentary can be found at:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/06/07/opinion/errol-morris-interview-death-penalty.html?_r=0&referer=

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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 Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;