High court halts Texas execution

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court stopped Texas officials Thursday evening from executing a Houston murderer who was sentenced to die after jurors were told he posed a greater danger to public safety because he was black.

The justices acted on an emergency appeal after Texas Gov. Rick Perry and state judges refused to intervene.

The high court’s brief order said the “stay of execution of sentence of death … is granted” while the justices decide whether to review the case of Duane Edward Buck.

“Praise the Lord!” Buck told Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jason Clark, according to the Associated Press. “God is worthy to be praised. God’s mercy triumphs over judgment. I feel good.”

The reprieve came nearly two hours into a six-hour window when Buck could have been executed, but state officials did not act while his emergency appeal was pending.

Buck, a 48-year-old auto mechanic, was sentenced to die for the 1995 shootings of an ex-girlfriend and another man. His attorneys did not dispute his guilt but argued that prosecutors should not have used his race to argue for a death sentence.

On Tuesday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommended against clemency.

Perry and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst did not respond to pleas urging them to grant Buck a 30-day reprieve. Perry, who is seeking the Republican presidential nomination, was campaigning in Iowa on Thursday, leaving Dewhurst to preside over the execution. After the stay was issued, Dewhurst’s office said he would have no comment. A Perry spokeswoman in Austin said, “This is a matter before the courts.”

The dispute dates back more than a decade, when then-Texas Attorney General John Cornyn acknowledged to the Supreme Court that prosecutors had violated the Constitution by relying on race-based arguments in six death penalty cases. Buck’s case was one of them, and he was the only one who did not receive a new sentencing hearing.

The other Death Row inmates were resentenced to death after the new hearings.