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Judge rules against Harris County in race-based testimony caseHOUSTON (AP) — A federal judge has ruled Harris County prosecutor cannot defend the use of race-based testimony in one of six cases in Which a psychologist might have improperly cited the defendants1 race or ethnicity as juries considered punishment.U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore ruled that Attorney General John Cornyn is responsible for defending the state’s actions in the 1992 trial of death row inmate Eugene Broxton despite the objections of Harris County Assistant District Attorney Roe Wilson.Broxton’s case is among fiveothers during which former state prison psychologist Walter Quijano was a prosecution witness and improperly testified that a defendant’s race should be a factor during the punishment phase.Broxton, 45, was convicted in the May 1991 attack on Way Ion and Sheila Dockens in a Houston hotel room. Testimony showed that Broxton bound, gagged, pistol-whipped and shot the couple, killing Mrs. Dockens. He also was charged with killing three other men on a monthlong crime spree in Harris County. .Comyn has admitted state prosecutors made a constitutional errorby allowing Quijano*s testimony during the sentencing phases of those trials and said he would not challenge appeals raised over the psychologist’s testimony. [The Broxton ease and five others were found after- a review by Comyn in the wake of,a June Supreme Court ruling in the case of Victor Hugo Saldano, convicted of murder in suburban Dallas four years ago.The Court ordered a new sentencing hearing for Saldano, saying it was “fundamentally unfair' for the prosecution to use racial and ethnic stereotypes in order to obtain a death penalty.”
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