The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a stay in the Thursday execution of Duane Buck, who was sentenced to death for a 1995 double murder in Houston. The decision comes after a Texas pardon board unanimously voted not to suggest Gov. Rick Perry commute Buck’s sentence to life in prison. The case has drawn national media attention because Buck's was one of six capital trials that Texas’s then–attorney general John Cornyn said might have been skewed by racist testimony. With the court’s ruling Thursday, Buck will likely be put to death by the end of the day.
