Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiWitnesses Provide Conflicting Testimony
HOUSTON -- An all-white jury in the central Louisiana town of Jena swiftly convicted a black teenager Thursday for attacking a white student in an incident that capped months of racial unrest and attracted the scrutiny of civil rights leaders concerned about the application of justice in the town.
Jurors convicted Mychal Bell, 17, of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy charges despite conflicting testimony from witnesses about whether Bell was among a group of black students who allegedly jumped the victim as he emerged from the gymnasium at the local high school on Dec. 4, knocking him unconscious.
Bell, a former high school football star who has been jailed since the incident, faces the possibility of more than 20 years in prison when he is sentenced July 31.
The attack followed an unsolved arson that destroyed the central wing of the school and a series of fights between whites and blacks that was triggered after three white students hung nooses from a tree on the campus in a threat aimed at blacks.
School administrators in the mostly white town of 3,000 said they regarded the noose incident as a youthful prank and handed brief suspensions to the students involved. That decision angered African-American students and their parents, who had demanded the white students' expulsion for what they saw as a hate crime.
Blacks' anger deepened when the local district attorney, Reed Walters, initially charged Bell and five other black teenagers with attempted murder in the December attack on the white student. The victim did not require hospitalization, prompting black leaders to protest that the charges were out of proportion to the crime.
But on Monday, following a May 20 Tribune report about the case, Walters reduced the charges against Bell, the first of the accused to go to trial. Walters has not revealed his plans regarding the other defendants, one of whom is being prosecuted as a juvenile.
The aggravated battery charge against Bell involved the use of a dangerous weapon. Although no evidence of a gun, knife or other weapon was introduced, Walters argued, and the jury agreed, that the tennis shoes Bell was wearing at the time of the attack qualified as a dangerous weapon.
There were inconsistencies in the testimony of prosecution witnesses. Some said they saw Bell strike the victim in the face during a melee outside the gym, others said Bell struck the victim in the back, while still others said they were not sure Bell was involved.
Bell's court-appointed public defender, Blane Williams, had urged the teenager to accept a plea bargain on the eve of the trial, but Bell declined. Williams, who is black, did not challenge the composition of the jury pool, which included no African-Americans, and the defense rested without calling any witnesses. He also excluded the teenager's parents from the courtroom.
"Blane Williams did not want to go to trial, he was not prepared to go to trial and he was angry when he was forced to go to trial," said Alan Bean, director of Friends of Justice, a Texas-based civil rights group that has closely followed the Jena case. "So he just sort of plowed ahead and decided to go through the motions."
Williams did not return calls seeking comment about his handling of the case.
"The appellate court now gets a chance to set this right," Williams told The Associated Press after the verdict.
hwitt@tribune.com
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
10 Comments so far
Show AllThis is the type of issue that stands out as being beyond any "political" leanings. What has happened here is just WRONG.... there is no excuse. No excuse for the school officials, no excuse for the town to allow it to go this far, no excuse for the District Attorney....for the court system, for the defense attorney, the local and national news media.... The whole thing is just pitiful. I can't believe this nonsense still goes on. Unfortunately, I have no solution, I'm just stunned.
Another jailed person, just enough to keep the "Justice system" alive and well, but until folks in LA and around US stop watching tv and listening to mindless music it will continue. But unfortunatley, most who are adversely affected by these policies don't read Common Dreams articles, don't write letters to editors and don't contact elected officials. Where was the widespread outrage in 2000, and after Katrina, and other events of this nature. Good citizens like Morris Dees, go unnoticed, and Bill Moyers is vitually unknown outside the progressive community. Where are the people of color standing with me on the streets protesting this wastefull Occupation of Iraq, once a month, not there. Sorry, but it takes all of us all the time, for a common good, but until then, backwater politicians will "stay the course" and I don't blame them. I'm just another pragmatic progressive out west mired in a "red county in a blue state."
One more comment on this case. Teenage boys fight. That's a given. Why was the black teen jailed for six months?! No permanent damage was done to the white teen, so what's the big deal? And why are tennis shoes considered a dangerous weapon?
The black kid has been in jail for six months already. Time to let him out. Enough is enough.
The silly youths who hung on a noose on a tree are simply parroting Louisiana's criminal justice system which is actually legalized lynching. Bell faces up to 20 years in prison thanks to an all white jury. The 21st century has passed Louisiana by. I think Louisiana should disband.
Yes, unfortunately racism is alive and well in the U.S. I live in Alaska, and you should see the racism that white and Mexican people direct at the Native-Americans here. It's mainly adults that do it to the children -- the big COWARDS. I've always stuck up for blacks and Native-American kids; I'm a mixed breed Native-American/Caucasian raised by N/As.
racism is alive and well. the only difference is now african americans are fighting back.
It seems to me that Mychal Bell is getting the same justice
that the nooses hung on the tree represent. Just where did the immature students get the idea of hanging nooses on a tree? Most young people get their ideas from their parents. I'm not saying that their parents told them to do it. Or that their parents even condone what they did. Wait, who said it was just "a youthful prank"? How long were the nooses in the tree? Did any adult pass by without pulling them down? No other student pulled them down? It seems to me that the whole town is at fault. What are they teaching in that town? What lesson is the judge teaching the people in that town?
The only crime committed by some of the African-Americans who were lynched was that they were better businessmen than some of their white competitors. High school football star, huh.
P.S. It seems that Mychal Bell's lawyer had already learned his lesson.
I'm not taking sides here; hanging nooses from a tree is definitely in poor taste, but I don't see how it constitutes a crime. Remember their age. Mature persons wouldn't have done that.
If Bell gets 20 years, that would be excessive. Why has he been in jail since December? I'd think that would have been enough punishment. He's had time to think.
This is the same state that let a white murderer go scott free in the early nineties
A japanese student knocks on a door asking for directions.
The resident asks the student to wait.
Gets his shotgun shoots the boy dead.
Trespassing.