First of all, I'd like to point out that I am not black. I am fully caucasian (WHITE). However, I do have alot of black friends and people who I consider my family. To me, this 17 year old BOY is being treated way too harshly. How can they justify charging these six teenagers with felonies when hanging nooses on a tree is not considered a hate crime? I believe in all my years (19) on this earth, I haven't seen such stupidity in our system. We are supposed to trust the judicial system. We are supposed to use the judicial system to our advantage. However, we can not get past racism? We are in 2007! Come on. This is just crazy to me.
NEW ORLEANS - A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate led to one of the largest civil rights protests in years is close to a deal that would allow him to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and avoid a second trial, his attorney said Sunday. Mychal Bell, 17, could enter the plea as early as Monday, said attorney Carol Powell Lexing. He has been charged with aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy.
"We were prepared to go forward with the trial, but you have to do what's best for the client," Lexing said.
LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters did not return a call Sunday evening requesting comment.
Bell, who is black, is scheduled to go to trial Thursday on the felony charges for his suspected role in an attack on Justin Barker, a white student at Jena High School in central Louisiana.
Barker spent several hours in the emergency room after the attack but was discharged and attended a school event the night after the attack, which occurred about a year ago.
Bell was originally charged as an adult with attempted murder. That charge was reduced before a jury convicted him in June of aggravated second-degree battery. In September, that verdict was thrown out by an appeals court that said Bell should be tried as a juvenile.
The charges against Bell and five other black students led to a civil-rights demonstration in Jena in September. Felony charges against the other students are pending.
Critics said prosecutors have treated blacks more harshly than whites in LaSalle Parish, pointing to an incident three months before the attack on Barker in which three white teens were accused of hanging nooses from a tree at the high school. The three were suspended from school but never criminally charged.
Walters has said there was no state crime to charge them with.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071203/ap_on_re_us/jena_six;_ylt=AsyTLWz742YxbFxxEoXR2wFvzwcF
Tell me what ya'll think?!?!
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Finally an end to it. This seems to be justice at work. At first I was pondering over what they were really fighting for. Now I see that they weren't trying to let this kid get off scotch free, but lessen his sentence to something more reasonable and suitable for the crime. That town should feel horrible for their actions.
justice finally worked in the end. Those boys shouldn't have hung those nuces they got exactly what they deserved.
Right...hanging nooses...attempted murder...yea, they're the same! What planet are you from? He assaulted somebody which is a crime if you are black, white, purple, blue, or turquoise. Hanging nooses isn't a hate crime because ITS ROPE ON A TREE! THERE IS NO CRIME COMMITTED! If they'd have hung somebody from that noose, that would be a hate crime. Those kids should sue the school for suspending them.
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