Duane E. Buck barged into his girlfriend’s Texas home after she broke up with him and killed her and a friend. Later that morning in July 1995, he fired a rifle at his stepsister, who survived because the bullet just missed her heart.
His guilt was never in doubt, and Mr. Buck, 54, who is black, was sentenced to death by lethal injection. But concerns about testimony from a psychologist in the sentencing phase — that black people were more dangerous than white people — raised concerns about the role of race in the jury’s decision and led the case to reach the Supreme Court.
Are black people more dangerous than white people? The late political scientist James Q. Wilson noted: “Black men commit murders at a rate about eight times greater than that for white men. This disparity is not new; it has existed for well over a century.”
So telling the truth will get a sentence overturned because the truth is racist.
