Despite appeals to Perry -- and to the state's notorious Board of Pardons and Paroles -- Buck got no reprieve. Perry's "very thoughtful, very clear process" was about to kill a man sentenced to death at least in part because of his race. Perry could have granted the stay, but he refused.

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Texas Governor Rick Perry uses his state's reputation for killing without question to gain applause for his presidential bid from Tea Party audiences that cannot contain their bloodlust. Perry, the frontrunner for the Republican party's 2012 nomination claims he "never struggled" with questions of justice and injustice, right and wrong, when it comes to approving the executions of Texans.

That's because, Perry says, "the state of Texas has a very thoughtful, very clear process in place."

On Thursday night, that "very thoughtful, very clear process" was due to execute the 236th inmate to die on Perry's watch.

But the latest victim, Duane Edward Buck, had been sentenced to death after an "expert witness" told jurors in Houston that Buck posed a greater threat to public safety because he was African-American.

That racially biased sentencing process drew objections from one of the prosecutors in the case, Linda Geffin, who wrote: "I felt compelled to step forward [because] of the improper injection of race into the sentencing hearing in Mr. Buck's case."

Former Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, a conservative Republican who now serves on the US Senate's Judiciary Committee, had moved to secure new hearings for defendants sentenced to death in circumstances similar to Buck's, with Cornyn saying: "It is inappropriate to allow race to be considered as a factor in our criminal justice system."

While other wrongful convictions were overturned, Buck fell through the cracks in a broken legal system. Despite appeals to Perry -- and to the state's notorious Board of Pardons and Paroles -- Buck got no reprieve. Perry's "very thoughtful, very clear process" was about to kill a man sentenced to death at least in part because of his race.

Buck's execution was set for Thursday night, and Buck was already two hours into a six-hour window when he could have been executed, when the Supreme Court intervened. The justices sent an urgent communication that a "stay of execution of sentence of death"is granted."

The court determined that it needed to weigh the argument, brought by Buck's attorneys, that "racial bias mars the integrity of the judicial system. An execution under these circumstances will do irreparable harm to the criminal justice system in general."

Perry could have granted the stay.

Lawyers and criminal justice advocates pleaded with him to do so.

But the governor refused.

It took the last-minute intervention of the US Supreme Court to prevent the injustice.

Perry thought the process was working splendidly -- at least for the purposes of his presidential campaign.

But the High Court thought differently.

"We are relieved that the US Supreme Court recognized the obvious injustice of allowing a defendant's race to factor into sentencing decisions," said Buck's attorney, Kate Black. "No one should be put to death based on the color of his or her skin."

Cross-posted from The Nation

Authors Bio:

John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.


Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.


Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. He was featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Outfoxed," and in the documentaries Joan Sekler's "Unprecedented," Matt Kohn's "Call It Democracy" and Robert Pappas' "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." The keynote speaker at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens, Nichols has been a featured presenter at conventions, conferences and public forums on media issues sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Consumers International, the Future of Music Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Newspaper Guild [CWA] and dozens of other organizations.


Nichols is the author of the upcoming book The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press), as well as a critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press) and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country."


With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories) and Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.


Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols's sword is the sharpest."