The last white man to join death row from Harris County was a convicted serial killer in 2004. Since then, 12 of the last 13 men newly condemned to die have been black, a Houston Chronicle analysis of prison and prosecution records shows.
The latest death sentence was handed down in October to a Hispanic.
The role of race in capital punishment has emerged repeatedly this year in the unsuccessful appeals by Duane Buck, an African-American from Houston convicted in a double murder. His 1997 sentencing featured testimony from a former prison psychiatrist who claimed blacks are more dangerous than whites.
Harris County District Attorney Patricia Lykos, elected as a reformer, has overseen decisions about whether to seek the death penalty since 2009. Her staff says the decisions are "race neutral" and "fact based."
"Whether to seek the death penalty in a capital murder case is the most solemn and profound decision that I must make," Lykos told the Chronicle. "It is agonizing and gut-wrenching."
As part of its review of the last seven years of death sentences, the Chronicle also examined capital cases first prosecuted in the 1980s and 1990s that were reviewed again after successful death row appeals. Since November 2004, five men have been re-sentenced to death - three white, one black and one Hispanic.
Robert Morrow, one of the county's busiest capital defense attorneys, called the string of consecutive African-Americans who received new death sentences from 2004-2011 startling. He said those numbers alone should prompt additional research and debate - especially since relatively few participate in the local decision-making process as jurors or as prosecutors.
"The more the defendant looks like you the harder it is to kill him - human nature being what it is," Morrow said. "It's something we have to be thinking about. It's an issue we never should get too far out of the front of our consciousness."
Testimony discredited
Buck's appeal of his pending execution was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court last week, largely because the expert who offered the testimony in his case was introduced not by prosecutors, but by Buck's own court-appointed defense attorney, Jerry Guerinot. That same expert's discredited testimony resulted in five previous Texas death row inmates winning appeals, though all were eventually resentenced to death.
Buck's supporters urged Lykos in September not to seek a new execution date for Buck because of the racist testimony. She told the Chronicle Friday that she has not yet made her decision.
"Before we take any action, we will carefully evaluate the arguments of Mr. Buck's lawyers and his supporters," said Lykos. "He will receive fair and thorough consideration of his claims."
Not first to question
Buck's current defense team is only the latest to argue that death sentences in Texas and nationwide are racially tainted and therefore violate the constitutional rights to due process and equal protection regardless of race, religion or ethnic origin.
Across Texas, elected prosecutors decide whether to seek death in capital murder cases, but death sentences must be approved by a jury and judge after a two-part trial.
The last non-Hispanic white sentenced to death was Anthony Shore in November 2004. Shore, a serial killer branded by prosecutors as a psychopath and monster, strangled and tortured four women and girls and raped three of his victims. He requested the death penalty.
Harris County has a long history of aggressive prosecution of capital cases.
More than a third of the state's current 305 death row inmates came from Harris County. So did half of the 121 black inmates on death row, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice data.
Blacks account for about half of recent murder arrests in Harris County. But they more often get charged with capital murder than whites or Hispanics, an analysis of more than 300 recent court cases by the Chronicle shows.
Race argument fails
Eight of 12 African-Americans were sentenced to death during the tenure of Chuck Rosenthal, who resigned as district attorney in 2008 over sexually-charged and racially-tinged emails. One included a photo of a black man, lying on the ground surrounded by watermelon and a bucket of chicken, that was labeled "fatal overdose."
Under Lykos, four more African-Americans and one Hispanic also were sentenced to die.
In October, Jaime Cole, born in Ecuador and raised here by adoptive parents, became the first Hispanic to get a death sentence in Harris County since 2004.
Cole was convicted of fatally shooting his ex-wife and 15-year-old stepdaughter and then kidnapping his toddler son after the attack, which was witnessed by Cole's son and other children. In Cole's case, attorneys also argued unsuccessfully that the state's failure to ensure whether death sentences were sought fairly regardless of race and ethnicity violated the U.S. Constitution.
Pleas to spare his life
Buck, who has been challenging his conviction, was found guilty in 1997 of killing Debra Gardner, a 32-year-old mother of two, and her friend Kenneth Butler. Buck also shot his sister,Phyllis Taylor, in the chest at point-blank range, though she survived.
Taylor, along with Buck's former prosecutor, has joined others in asking Lykos not to seek a new execution date. The governor, the trial judge and the parole board have rejected similar pleas.
"We believe that no one should be executed whose death sentence was based on racially-biased evidence used by the prosecution at Mr. Buck's trial," says the Sept. 28 letter from his sister. "We know that you are similarly committed to ensuring that our justice system is not tainted by considerations of race."
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