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prosecutor asked Dr. Quijano.
“Is that correct?”
“Yes,” the psychologist replied.
That statement, and how it
was handled by the Harris
County District Attorney’s
Office, helped spare Mr.
Buck from the death chamber
on Thursday, and has become
the center of a case that
has raised questions about
the role of race in the Texas
criminal justice system at a
time when Gov. Rick Perry’s
support of the death penalty
has become a factor in his
campaign for the Republican
presidential nomination.
Mr. Buck, 48, had been s-
cheduled to be executed on
Thursday evening, but the
Supreme Court intervened,
granting a temporary stay of
execution pending a decision
about whether it will review
an appeal of his case. Mr.
Buck’s lawyers had argued
that his death sentence was
based, at least in part, on his
race, and that in carrying out
his execution, the state would
violate the equal protection
Clause of the Constitution,
which prohibits discrimination
by state governments.
At Mr. Buck’s sentencing
hearing in 1997, the Harris
County prosecutor told the
jury in her closing argument
to rely on the psychologist’s
expert testimony, telling the
jury: “You heard from Dr.
Quijano, who had a lot of
experience in the Texas Department
of Corrections, who
told you that there was a probability
that the man would
commit future acts of violence.”
In 2000, while the case was
on appeal, the state attorney
general at the time, John
Cornyn, made an unusual
announcement, conceding
error in Mr. Buck’s case and
six others in which the government
had relied on race
as a factor in sentencing. Mr.
Cornyn, now a United States
senator, stated that if the
lawyers for the defendants in
those cases challenged the
government’s reliance on
race at sentencing, he would
not object. All of those cases
centered on testimony from
Dr. Quijano, a former chief
psychologist for the state
prison system.
“The people of Texas want
and deserve a system that
affords the same fairness to
everyone,” Mr. Cornyn said
then.
Of the defendants, all of
whom were on death row,
Mr. Buck was the only one
who had not been granted a
new sentencing hearing. The
others were later resentenced
to death.
The efforts to stop Mr.
Buck’s execution drew widespread
support. Linda Geffin,
a former assistant district
attorney in Harris County
who helped prosecute Mr.
Buck, wrote a letter to state
officials, including Mr. Perry,
asking them to halt the
execution, writing that it was
regrettable that “any racebased
considerations were
placed before Mr. Buck’s
jury.” In addition, a survivor
of Mr. Buck’s attack, Phyllis
Taylor, had urged the Texas
Board of Pardons and Paroles
and the governor to halt the
execution.
Ms. Taylor was a friend of
Mr. Buck’s former girlfriend,
Debra Gardner. Mr. Buck’s
lawyers have not denied his
guilt in the case: In July
1995, about a week after they
had ended their relationship,
Mr. Buck barged into Ms.
Gardner’s house in Houston
with a rifle and a shotgun and
opened fire, killing Ms.
Gardner and one of her friends,
Kenneth Butler, while
injuring Ms. Taylor. Ms.
Gardner’s two children saw
Mr. Buck shoot her.
Sixteen years later, Ms. Taylor
met with a lawyer in Mr.
Perry’s office and a member
of the state parole board in
recent days, urging them to
grant clemency. The parole
board, however, later recommended
against clemency.
In papers filed with the Supreme
Court on Thursday,
lawyers for the Texas attorney
general, Greg Abbott,
wrote that Mr. Buck’s Constitutional
rights were not
violated and that Mr. Abbott
had, in 2005, determined that
Mr. Buck’s case was not similar
to the other cases involving
Dr. Quijano’s testimony.
“Buck called Quijano,
and Buck opened the door to
this issue,” the lawyers wrote.
“The prosecutor’s crossexamination
on this topic
merely asked Quijano to restate
what he had said on direct.
But neither Quijano nor
the state suggested to the jury
that they rely on race as a
factor in deciding that Buck
would be a future danger.”
Mr. Perry, who has the power
to grant a 30-day stay of
execution, was campaigning
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