Rick Perry in the spotlight as Texas sets to work on
controversial executions

Texas governor and Republican presidential candidate faces
appeals for clemency in two highly charged death row cases

By Ed Pilkington
guardian.co.uk 
September 13, 2011

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/13/rick-perry-texas-death-penalty/print

Rick Perry, the frontrunner to become the Republican
candidate in next year's presidential election, has just
hours left to prevent a man being put to death in Texas in a
case in which the jury was told the prisoner was a danger to
the public - and should therefore be executed - because he
was black.

Duane Buck is one of four men scheduled to die by lethal
injection in Texas, where Perry is governor, over the next
eight days - an exceptional rate even in this execution-happy
state. At Buck's sentencing hearing, the jury that set his
punishment was informed by a psychologist that black people
had a higher rate of violent behaviour, a statement used by
the prosecution as its key argument against giving him an
alternative penalty of life imprisonment.

On Tuesday night, another hotly contested case is scheduled
to reach its climax with the execution of Steven Woods, who
was sentenced to death for a double murder, even though an
alleged accomplice later confessed to having pulled the
trigger.

How Perry reacts to the demands for commutation and clemency
in these two highly controversial cases will give an
indication of how he proposes to deal with the death penalty
issue, which has welled up in the presidential race for the
first time. Perry was questioned about his enthusiasm for the
death penalty at a televised Republican debate last week.
When the TV moderator put it to him that his state had
executed 234 prisoners since he became governor in 2000, the
Republican studio audience cheered.

Perry said he had never lost any sleep worrying that some of
those individuals might have been innocent. "I've never
struggled with that at all," he said.

When asked how he felt about the audience applauding so many
deaths, he replied: "I think Americans understand justice."

Lawyers for both Buck and Woods are engaged in frenzied last-
minute lobbying to Perry and to the courts to try to put off
the executions. If their efforts fail, Woods's execution on
Tuesday night will be followed by Buck's on Wednesday night.

Responsibility for the execution going ahead, despite the
controversy over the racially-tinged testimony, is now
falling squarely on the shoulders of Perry. The Texas Board
of Pardons and Paroles has cleared away one of the last
impediments to the ultimate penalty going ahead by refusing
to recommend that Buck should be granted clemency.

That leaves Perry, who has power to issue a 30-day reprieve
but who has very rarely done so.

Buck, 48, shot and killed Debra Gardner, his former
girlfriend, and a friend of hers, Kenneth Butler, in a
drunken explosion of jealousy in July 1995. His guilt is not
in dispute, but the testimony presented to the jury at his
sentencing is.

At the hearing, a psychologist, Dr Walter Quijano, was called
by the defence and testified that he did not believe Buck
would be a future danger as the murders had been a one-off
crime of passion. But under cross-examination, the
prosecution pressed him about Buck's ethnicity as an African-
American.

"You have determined that the - race factor, black, increases
the future dangerousness for various complicated reasons. Is
that correct?" the prosecution asked.

"Yes," replied Quijano.

The prosecution later exhorted the jury to make their
decision on the basis of Quijano's testimony. The jury found
that Buck did pose a future danger of violence, and put him
on death row.

In 2000, the then attorney general in Texas, John Cornyn,
admitted that the racial testimony of Quijano had wrongfully
been allowed to prejudice sentencing in seven separate cases.
Six of those cases were reheard as a result, but, in a legal
oversight, Buck's never was.

Buck's lawyer, Katherine Black, is petitioning Perry to
commute his execution to allow resentencing. "This case
violates the US constitution and undermines our moral values.
A person has a right to be sentenced based not on the colour
of their skin," the petition reads.

Further pressure has been brought to bear on Perry by a
senior Texas lawyer who acted as prosecutor in Buck's
original trial. Linda Geffin has written to Perry calling on
him to delay the execution. "It is inappropriate to allow
race to be considered as a factor in our criminal justice
system," she wrote.

Steven Woods, 31, who will die barring a last-minute stay of
execution, was one of two men accused of murdering Ronald
Whitehead and Bethena Brosz in a drugs turf war in May 2001.

Woods was brought to trial in August the following year. The
prosecution alleged that he had planned and carried out the
shootings, and he was convicted and sentenced to death.

Three months later, his alleged accomplice, Marcus Rhodes,
who had cut a deal with prosecutors, was given a life
sentence, despite having confessed that he had personally
carried out the shootings. Rhodes was given life
imprisonment, while Woods remained on death row.

Amnesty International has issued an urgent action alert,
accusing Texas of treating Woods unfairly in a case "where
one defendant receives a death sentence and another who pled
guilty to personally shooting the two victims receives a life
sentence".

Mary O'Grady, a specialist in death row based in Austin, said
that under the so-called "law of parties" in Texas, death
penalties can be inflicted even on those who did not pull the
trigger. Being present at a murder, knowing that an
accomplice intended to kill, is sufficient.

"A lot of people with no blood on their own hands get
executed in Texas," O'Grady said.

The prospects of Perry granting clemency for Woods are not
great. The governor has only once in 11 years shown clemency
to a death row inmate unless forced to do so by the courts.

"When it comes to death row, Perry is completely unfeeling
and unemotional," said Ray Hill, who runs the Execution Watch
website and radio show in Texas.

"It never strikes him that he should value the lives of those
who are accused, even wrongfully."

Next week two further executions are scheduled, of Cleve
Foster on Tuesday and Lawrence Brewer on Wednesday.

© 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated
companies. All rights reserved.

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