Buck v. Davis

Buck v. Davis
Buck v. Davis
	Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 5, 2016; Decided February 22, 2017
Full case name	Duane Edward Buck v. Lorie Davis, Director, Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Correctional Institutions Division
Docket no.	15-8049
Citations	580 U.S. ___ (more) 137 S. Ct. 759; 197 L. Ed. 2d 1
Case history
Prior	Buck v. Stephens, 623 F. App'x 668 (5th Cir. 2015); cert. granted, 136 S. Ct. 2409 (2016).
Procedural	On writ of certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Subsequent	865 F.3d 215 (5th Cir. 2017)
Court membership
	Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas; Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer; Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor; Elena Kagan
Case opinions
Majority	Roberts, joined by Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Dissent	Thomas, joined by Alito
Laws applied
	U.S. Const. amend. VI

Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. ___ (2017), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court reversed the death sentence of the defendant Duane Buck after the defendant's attorney introduced evidence that suggested the defendant would be more likely to commit violent acts in the future because he was black.^[1]

Opinion of the Court

In a 6-2 opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court held that the defendant was denied effective assistance of counsel under Strickland v. Washington.^[2]^[3] Chief Justice Roberts' ruling rejected the District Court's argument that the discussion of race at trial was de minimis and therefore not prejudicial.^[4] Rather, Chief Justice Roberts wrote: "when a jury hears expert testimony that expressly makes a defendant’s race directly pertinent on the question of life or death, the impact of that evidence cannot be measured simply by how much air time it received at trial or how many pages it occupies in the record. Some toxins can be deadly in small doses."^[5]

References

^ Buck v. Davis, No. 15-8049, 580 U.S. ___ (2017).
^ The Supreme Court, 2016 Term — Leading Cases, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 263 (2017).
^ Buck, slip op. at 15-20 (citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)).
^ Buck, slip op. at 19.
^ Buck, slip op. at 19-20.

External links

Text of Buck v. Davis, 580 U.S. ___ (2017) is available from: Google Scholar Justia Oyez (oral argument audio) Supreme Court (slip opinion)
Case page at SCOTUSblog

[1] Buck v. Davis, No. 15-8049, 580 U.S. ___ (2017).

[harv-2] The Supreme Court, 2016 Term — Leading Cases, 131 Harv. L. Rev. 263 (2017).

[3] Buck, slip op. at 15-20 (citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)).

[4] Buck, slip op. at 19.

[5] Buck, slip op. at 19-20.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

Opinion of the Court

See also

References

External links