Dallas Observer editor Mark Donald and I have written about Ronald Chambers on and off for years -- Mark, for D, way back in the spring of 1986. (Ancient Observer stories, alas, have not been been so rigorously archived.) For 32 years, the 53-year-old man known as Buffalo has been waiting to die on Texas' Death Row for kidnapping, robbing and killing one college student at the Trinity River bottoms and beating another during the same horrific incident in April 1975. He was scheduled to die January 25, 2007, but dodged that particular needle -- twice.
And, the so-called "Dean of Death Row" will live even longer, as today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that his case must go back to trial court in Dallas, where he will be re-sentenced. The Dallas County District Attorney's Office will have to decide whether or not to once more seek the death penalty. No one in Craig Watkins' office was available to comment to Unfair Park this afternoon concerning the Supreme Court's decision; we will update when the District Attorney's Office responds. --Robert Wilonsky
