Duane Buck

Who is Duane Buck?

Duane Edward Buck is an African-American man convicted of shooting three people, killing two in 1995. He was scheduled to be executed on September 15, 2011, however, the Supreme Court of the United States granted a stay of the process.

In 1995 the 32-year-old Buck shot and killed his former girlfriend and a man in her apartment. At the trial a psychologist testified that black people were statistically more likely to commit violence. He was sentenced to death. The psychologist's assertion about black offenders has been the cornerstone of Buck's death penalty appeal; that his conviction was racially biased. In 2000 Texas Attorney General John Cornyn recommended that six cases, including Buck's case, be reviewed for racially biased testimony. Buck's case was not reviewed; the other five cases were reviewed but all of those offenders were sentenced to death again because the testimony was found to be only a small part of each trial.