The Supreme Court on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly to put on hold a death sentence that had been upheld twice in lower federal circuits.
Duane Buck was granted the temporary reprieve after six justices decided an appellate court had not properly adjudicated his claims of having an incompetent lawyer. The Sixth Amendment guarantees “the Assistance of Counsel for…defense.”
Buck had been sentenced to death in Texas, after his own attorneys said he was more likely to re-offend on the account of his race. Buck is black.
“No competent defense attorney would introduce evidence that his client is liable to be a future danger because of his race,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito voted in dissent.
After Buck received the death penalty, the expert defense witness who entered race science as evidence against him, Dr. Walter Quijano, had been disavowed by the Texas Attorney General.
Quijano caught the attention of officials and defense lawyers, after the psychologist said that a Hispanic defendant had a propensity toward recidivism on account of his heritage.
State prosecutors agreed to hold resentencing hearings in five cases featuring Dr. Quijano’s testimony, but not in Buck’s case. His state-level appeals were denied on the grounds that he failed to raise the incompetent counsel claim in time. Buck’s petition was filed before Texas distanced itself from Quijano.
A federal District Court then denied Buck’s appeal on procedural grounds, saying racially biased evidence was “de minimis” at his state trial. The Fifth Circuit followed suit, denying Buck “certificate of appealability.”
“The question for the Court of Appeals was not whether Buck had shown that his case is extraordinary,” Roberts wrote. “[I]t was whether jurists of reason could debate that issue.”
He added that Texas attorneys’ citation of “the Fifth Circuit’s thorough consideration of the merits…hurts rather than helps its case.” Buck’s appeal will move back to the Fifth Circuit.
Roberts also blasted the District Court, saying the evidence presented by Quijano “cannot be dismissed as ‘de minimis.'”
Buck had been convicted of the 1995 slaying of his ex-girlfriend and two others, in what defense lawyers said was a “crime of passion.”
Expert witnesses, including Quijano, had said that Buck’s crime and his history of violence had a misogynistic bent, lessening the chance he would re-offend, if given a life sentence.
“Buck, of course, would not form any such relationships [with women] while incarcerated,” Roberts said.
