Just between us, doesn’t everybody know that it’s just common sense that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to commit crimes than white? It’s just common sense.*
You’re in good company, you know. Psychologist Walter Quijano agrees with you.
Law, shmaw. Sure, the law wants us to pretend that we’re all equal, all worthy of the same protections of the Constitution, but that’s just legal mumbo jumbo used by lawyers and judges to cover up the corruption of the legal system. We know what’s what, just like Quijano.Seven people in Texas were sent to death row in part because psychologist Walter Quijano told their juries that as blacks or Hispanics they were more likely to commit future violent crimes than if they had been white. Quijano shouldn’t have done that.
What he said is factually wrong; there is no basis for the conclusion that blacks and Hispanics are more violent than whites. What he said is morally offensive; it is racism in action, regardless of whether Quijano thinks so. What he said, in the context of a trial, is legally improper; considerations of race have no place in the criminal justice system. What he said, in the context of a trial, is unconstitutional; it made the sentences, at least in part, dependent on race in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
And now Jeff Gamso, who’s never met a killer he didn’t love, wants to blame Quijano for having the cojones to tell the truth, the one we all know but aren’t supposed to say because it makes liberals get all sweaty and upset. So Gamso’s latest boyfriend, the murderous Duane Buck, is going get what’s coming to him, truth be damned. Boo hoo.
And look at all the Texas politicos whose gutlessness would make Bowie weep. Not David Bowie, you dolt. Jim.
Then Texas Attorney General John Cornyn (he’s now a U.S. Senator) recognized that what Quijano did was inexcusable and its effect on the sentences unacceptable.
As Cornyn strolls down the beltway sipping chardonnay, scared to death that he’ll drip barbecue on his tie.
One of the prosecutors who tried Buck’s case and put him on death row, Linda Geffin, wrote a letter asking the Parole Board to grant him relief. The surviving victim of the attacks that put him on the row, Phyllis Taylor, wants him to get clemency.
How the dominoes fall, and yet nobody thinks that this is a crime, the worst of crimes, and it’s not about one girlie prosecutor who put Quijano on the stand in the first place and now feels bad about it. Feee-eee-eelings. And who cares what Phyllis Taylor has to say? It takes neither brains nor balls to be the victim.
Thankfully, a body stands between real people and the murderers to take the heat and see it as clearly as Quijano.
It’s just common sense. Everybody knows that blacks and Hispanics have a propensity toward crime, and the Parole Board and the next President of these United States of America get it. Be proud and happy that there are a few men left in this country who still have common sense. and the guts to use it.The way it works in Texas, the Governor can grant clemency only if his hand picked parole board recommends it.
This afternoon, the Parole Board said no.
And if you feel bad for Duane Buck, save it for someone who doesn’t need killing.
________________________
* For any reader too dense to realize that this is sarcasm at its worst, the introduction to this post reflects my longstanding contention that there is no such thing as “common sense” and that it’s used as a means of rationalization by ignorant people who cannot explain their beliefs on a rational basis and resort to some vague, mythical, irrational justification to avoid the real labor of thinking.
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So that’s why prosecutors ask jurors to use their “common sense.” But I thought the reason was not to avoid the real labor of thinking, but to reach one’s desired result when other means would fail.
BTW, I infer the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the applicable U S District and Circuit Courts found no basis for relief based on the admission of Quijano’s apparent biased, bigoted speculation, oops, sorry, expert opinion. Mr. Gamso’s brief piece made no mention of the action taken by any of them. My guess is they held it to have been “harmless error,” i.e., error which will not be suffered to reverse a result consistent with common sense.
The Appeal to Common Sense, July 9, 2007.
Thank you for the link to the fine argument. You’re better than CLE.
Cheaper too.
How would it have been had Quijano and prosecution team simply said to ignore common sense and look at the statistics?
Is raw data allowed to be used?
My personal opinion (which is extremely lacking in common sense) is that race / gender / specified-diety-of-choice should have no bearing on the whether or not the young Buck dies. Instead, that should lie solely on if he did it or not (beyond a commonly sensible reasonable doubt).
OK. He did. He dies.
Notably absent from the post or link is that the survivor of the attack is Buck’s own sister.
I’d bet that Quijano’s testimony – improper / unethical / immoral / just plain wrong – was like tossing a cup of sand on a beach.
Well, let’s take it a step at a time. Not everybody convicted of murder gets/should get death, right? If not, then what happened during the sentencing phase won’t matter to you and there’s nothing more to discuss.
Now, it may very well have been that had Quijano either not testified or provided factual testimony rather than substitute his personal beliefs for facts, and there is zero empirical support that blacks and Hispanics are more prone to recidivism than whites, that Buck would have still been given the death penalty. But once Quijano (with the help of the prosecution and judge) tosses his racist opinion into the mix as an expert, the sentencing phases is screwed.
Should Buck be executed? Assuming that you’re not against the death penalty per se (as I am and you’re not), then give him a proper sentencing phase and get whatever outcome you get. But once tainted, you can’t ignore it or circumvent it. It’s bad.
98% of murderers give the other 2% a bad name. (So “no.” Not everyone. I’d also missed the point about his testimony referring specifically to recidivism.)
Perhaps the appropriate solution would be to redo the sentencing phase with a “fresh jury” though I doubt such a process exists.
Given the case and that it is Texas, even the best defender would have difficulty getting Buck into that 2%. The best Buck and his defense could hope for would be to delay the inevitable sentence and execution.
And so now you see the problem with this dumbass testimony. Whether he would be in the 2% may be 98% unlikely, but given Quijano’s testimony, we can’t say for sure.
If Quijano were an expert witness called by the defense, would that make a difference?
I don’t know if he was and I don’t think that it does make a difference as the prosecutor shouldn’t have followed the line of questioning anyway.
No, provided he wasn’t a defense witness and the defense didn’t elicit or open the door to (though I can’t imagine how this could be possible, though I can envision a court saying it) the improper testimony.
Quijano was called by the defense :
Well that’s certainly interesting:
and
Thoughts about this, Mark? It sounds as if the defense did indeed open the door to this.
I don’t see any suggestion that the defense opened the door to the race testimony, but the lawyers might have been unduly optimistic in expecting Quijano not to do something to prejudice their client.
I got the sense that they opened the door from your quote above:
Why they would do so seems inconceivable, but that’s what the article says.