Perry won't preside over scheduled Texas execution

Buck was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her friend in a Houston apartment back in 1997. But in the days leading up to his execution, some important players are urging Texas officials to spare Buck's life.
Last Monday, Linda Geffin—a former Texas District Attorney and a prosecutor on Buck's case 10 years ago—wrote a letter to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles claiming that Buck's case may have been "tainted" by "unconstitutional considerations of race," referring to a physiologist's testimony that Buck was more likely to be violent again because he is black.
And more, last week, Buck's survived shooting victim, Phyllis Taylor stepped forward urging Governor Rick Perry to grant clemency. "This execution would only add to my pain, and it wouldn't give me closure," she wrote in a letter to Perry, "I feel that he deserves a fair trial."
But as the Republican race for the White House heats up, Governor Perry may not answer answer her plea.
Especially when considering that Taylor wrote her letter the same day as the Republican debate at the Reagan Presidential Library. When moderator Brian Williams asked Perry about his record of authorizing 234 executions—more than any governor in modern history—during his tenure as Texas' governor, the crowd erupted with applause.
That number—234—deserves some pause. It constitutes almost 20 percent of the total executions in the county since 1976. It averages one execution every 17 days for the last 11 years and more than one every two weeks in 2010. In 2009, Texas saw 24 executions. It was followed by Virginia, which had three.
It includes Cameron Todd Willingham, executed in 2004 after Perry quickly fired investigators who found evidence that suggested Willingham's innocence after accusations of arson and murder of his three daughters. It includes Leonard Uresti Rojas, whose court appointed lawyer was on probation with the Texas bar and missed several important deadlines for his client. And it includes Napoleon Beazley, who was charged with shooting during a carjacking as a minor, at age 17. On the eve of his death, he wrote, "Tonight we tell the world that there are no second chances in the eyes of justice."
234 is indeed an impressive number, and one that Perry takes pride in. His response to Williams at last week's debate is chillingly steady: "No, sir. I've never struggled with that at all. The state of Texas has a very thoughtful, a very clear process in place of which—when someone commits the most heinous of crimes against our citizens, they get a fair hearing, they go through an appellate process, they go up to the Supreme Court of the United States, if that's required."
Following more applause, he added, "Americans understand justice."
But there's no sidestepping the fact that the American justice system is by no means a "clear process," as Perry suggested. And the decision to kill a human being should never be so simple.
To Bush, the decision to invade Iraq was a simple one.
In an era when politics, and presidential politics in particular, has become a stage of almost theatrical absurdity, wherein rashness and doggedness are mistaken for "common sense," I don't want a man who authorized one fifth of the executions in the United States in the last 50 years in charge of the United States' military.


Buck's stepsister, Phyllis Taylor, who was wounded in the shooting, has reportedly forgiven him and wants his death sentence commuted to life in prison. She met with staffers from Perry's office last week, according to Buck's attorney.


"We still are hopeful the governor will grant a 30-day reprieve to allow state officials time to work together to ensure that Mr. Buck receives a sentencing hearing untainted by issues of race,” said Kate Black, Buck's Houston-based attorney, in an interview with The Times. She is representing the inmate pro bono through the nonprofit Texas Defenders Service.


During last week's GOP presidential debate, Perry responded to a question about Texas' 234 executions during his tenure as governor by saying that he "never struggled" with the issue because "the state of Texas has a very thoughtful, very clear process in place."


But Perry will not be presiding over Buck's execution, according to Lucy Nashed, a Perry spokeswoman.


Perry is out of state, so the responsibility falls to Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican campaigning for the seat being vacated by longtime Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Nashed told The Times.


Dewhurst has presided over previous executions in the governor's absence, according to spokesman Mike Walz. Dewhurst declined to comment about the Buck case late Wednesday, Walz said.


Buck's guilt is not in doubt. At issue is the sentencing hearing, at which jurors were asked to decide whether to condemn the Houston mechanic to death or to life in prison. Under Texas law, the jury must weigh whether the defendant poses a "future danger."


Walter Quijano, a psychologist brought in to testify in Buck's defense, at first said Buck was not likely to be dangerous because he had no previous history of violence. But when a prosecutor pressed him about whether Buck's race "increases the future dangerousness," the psychologist said it did. Prosecutors cited his testimony in their closing argument.


Texas state attorneys later admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court that Quijano had wrongly injected race into the sentencing hearing for Buck and five other Texas death row inmates.


The other five inmates got new hearings, but state attorneys refused to give Buck one, and the courts upheld his death sentence.


Last week, one of the original prosecutors who handled Buck's case, Linda Geffin, wrote a letter to Perry and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles in support of Buck's petition for clemency or a new hearing. Although the board recommended against clemency, Geffin said Wednesday that she was still hopeful the governor's administration would step in.


“There is still time to right a wrong. As every minute ticks by, there’s less time,” Geffin said. “Nobody’s saying let him out, let him free. But he is entitled to a fair and equitable trial.”


Also Wednesday, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Buck's motion for a stay of execution. The court also denied Buck's authorization to appeal an earlier rejection by the Houston Division of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.