This Takes ' Driving While Black' to a Whole Other Level

From The Chicago Tribune's Howard Witt:

Highway robbery? Texas police seize black motorists' cash, cars
Suit says cops force motorists, largely black, to forfeit cash and cars—or be charged with trumped-up crimes
By Howard Witt Tribune correspondent
March 10, 2009

TENAHA, Texas— You can drive into this dusty fleck of a town near the Texas-Louisiana border if you're African-American, but you might not be able to drive out of it—at least not with your car, your cash, your jewelry or other valuables.

That's because the police here allegedly have found a way to strip motorists, many of them black, of their property without ever charging them with a crime. Instead they offer out-of-towners a grim choice: voluntarily sign over your belongings to the town, or face felony charges of money laundering or other serious crimes.

More than 140 people reluctantly accepted that deal from June 2006 to June 2008, according to court records. Among them were a black grandmother from Akron, who surrendered $4,000 in cash after Tenaha police pulled her over, and an interracial couple from Houston, who gave up more than $6,000 after police threatened to seize their children and put them into foster care, the court documents show. Neither the grandmother nor the couple were charged with any crime.

Officials in Tenaha, situated along a heavily traveled highway connecting Houston with popular gambling destinations in Louisiana, say they are engaged in a battle against drug trafficking and call the search-and-seizure practice a legitimate use of the state's asset-forfeiture law. That law permits local police agencies to keep drug money and other property used in the commission of a crime and add the proceeds to their budgets.

"We try to enforce the law here," said George Bowers, mayor of the town of 1,046 residents, where boarded-up businesses outnumber open ones and City Hall sports a broken window. "We're not doing this to raise money. That's all I'm going to say at this point."

But civil rights lawyers call Tenaha's practice something else: highway robbery. The attorneys have filed a federal class-action lawsuit to stop what they contend is an unconstitutional perversion of the law's intent, aimed primarily at blacks who have done nothing wrong.

Tenaha officials "have developed an illegal 'stop and seize' practice of targeting, stopping, detaining, searching and often seizing property from apparently non-white citizens and those traveling with non-white citizens," asserts the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas.

The property seizures are not just happening in Tenaha. In southern parts of Texas near the Mexican border, for example, Hispanics allege that they are being singled out.

According to a prominent state legislator, police agencies across Texas are wielding the asset-forfeiture law more aggressively to supplement their shrinking operating budgets.

"If used properly, it's a good law-enforcement tool to see that crime doesn't pay," said state Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate's Criminal Justice Committee. "But in this instance, where people are being pulled over and their property is taken with no charges filed and no convictions, I think that's theft."

David Guillory, an attorney in Nacogdoches who filed the federal lawsuit, said he combed through Shelby County court records from 2006 to 2008 and discovered nearly 200 cases in which Tenaha police seized cash and property from motorists. In about 50 of the cases, suspects were charged with drug possession.

But in 147 others, Guillory said the court records showed, police seized cash, jewelry, cell phones and sometimes even automobiles from motorists but never found any contraband or charged them with any crime. Of those, Guillory said he managed to contact 40 of the motorists directly—and discovered all but one of them were black.

"The whole thing is disproportionately targeted toward minorities, particularly African-Americans," Guillory said. "None of these people have been charged with a crime, none were engaged in anything that looked criminal. The sole factor is that they had something that looked valuable."

Rest of Article at link above.

Will the Obama Justice Department investigate this?

Sean Bell's Killers ACQUITTED

Just saw this on CNN. Sean Bell's killers have been acquitted. Bell was at his bachelor party, the morning of his wedding, when he was shot dead in a hail of bulletts from 3 NYPD Officers. He and the men in the car with him were all unarmed. A total of 50 bulletts were shot at the car with Bell and his friends inside.

Your ' Just-us' System at work.

Plea Deal Reached for 'Jena 6' Teen

Hat Tip:Skeptical Brotha

Plea Deal Reached for 'Jena 6' Teen
Mychal Bell Pleaded Guilty to Second-Degree Battery; He Could Be Released in 8 Months

A black teenager may get out of a juvenile facility in about eight months after a deal was struck Monday with prosecutors in the beating of a white classmate that sparked a major civil rights demonstration amid cries that his treatment was unduly harsh.

Mychal Bell, now 17, originally was charged as an adult with attempted murder in the beating of Justin Barker in December 2006. 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.

Under the deal, Bell pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery in return for an 18-month sentence with credit for the 10 months he already has served. Without a deal, Bell faced being placed in a juvenile facility until his 21st birthday.

Bell also must pay court costs plus $935 to the Barker family and he must testify truthfully in court if any other of his co-defendants in the Barker beating go to trial.

"This was a way to put a close to an event at a time when everyone had reasons to want it settled," said Louis Scott, one of Bell's lawyers.

Bell is one of a group of teens who came to be known as the "Jena Six" as word spread of their arrests on attempted second-degree murder charges, which could have landed them in prison for decades.

"We were prepared to go forward with the trial, but you have to do what's best for the client," said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell's attorneys. A juvenile court trial was to begin later this week.

As part of the deal, Bell will undergo counseling and begin to be reintegrated into the school system, his lawyers said.

Rest of article here.

Just reporting. I'm too mad to really comment.

Genarlow Wilson Finally FREE- Georgia Supreme Court Rules

Hat tip: WVON 1690 AM-Santita Jackson Show

From CNN.com

Court orders Wilson freed in teen sex case

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- The Georgia Supreme Court on Friday ordered that Genarlow Wilson be released from prison, ruling 4-3 that his sentence for a teen sex conviction was cruel and unusual punishment.

Genarlow Wilson's case received national attention and led to changes in Georgia law.

Wilson, 21, was convicted in 2005 of having oral sex with a consenting 15-year-old girl when he was 17.

He has served more than two years in prison.

Wilson's attorney, B.J. Bernstein, told CNN she is working to gain his quick release, which could come "some time today." She said she called the prison warden, who has informed Wilson.

"We've been praying for it every day," Bernstein said of the court's decision. Wilson can go free as soon as a Monroe County judge issues a new order and it is served to the attorney general and the department of corrections, she added.

"We want him home," Bernstein said. "In the end it shows this: That the courts can work, the courts do work." She added that Wilson's mother, Juannessa Bennett, is "overjoyed." Watch what has to happen before Wilson goes home »

A spokesman for Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker said there will be no further appeals.

"I respectfully acknowledge the Court's authority to grant the relief that they have crafted in this case," Baker said.

"I hope the Court's decision will also put an end to this issue as a matter of contention in the hearts and minds of concerned Georgians and others across the country who have taken such a strong interest in this case," he added.


Georgia Supreme Court's order
Friday's decision came after a protracted legal battle that has galvanized international attention and drawn the involvement of civil rights leaders. Partly as a result of Wilson's conviction, state legislators changed the law to make such consensual conduct between minors a misdemeanor, rather than a felony.

At the time of Wilson's conviction, Georgia law made the crime punishable by 10 years in prison. Changes in the law made such conduct "punishable by no more than a year in prison and no sex offender registration," the court noted.

But those changes were not made retroactive, so they did not apply to Wilson.

The Georgia high court upheld the decision of the Monroe County judge. In a 48-page opinion, the court said the "severe" punishment Wilson received and his mandated sex offender registration make "no measurable contribution to acceptable goals of punishment."

The case revolves around a New Year's Eve party outside Atlanta in 2003 when Wilson engaged in the sex act with the girl.

Under a now-changed Georgia law, Wilson was convicted of felony aggravated child molestation. He was acquitted on a second charge of raping a 17-year-old girl -- who prosecutors maintained was too intoxicated at the party to consent.

The 10-year sentence was mandatory under the law.

In the decision, Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears wrote that changes in the law "represent a seismic shift in the legislature's view of the gravity of oral sex between two willing teenage participants."

"Although society has a significant interest in protecting children from premature sexual activity, we must acknowledge that Wilson's crime does not rise to the level of culpability of adults who prey on children," the court's majority found.

"For the law to punish Wilson as it would an adult, with the extraordinarily harsh punishment of 10 years in prison without the possibility of probation or parole, appears to be grossly disproportionate to his crime," the majority opinion concluded.

The dissent noted that the Georgia Legislature had made clear that the changes in the law were not to be applied retroactively.

Justice George Carley, writing for the dissenting justices, said, "The General Assembly made the express decision that he cannot benefit from the subsequent legislative determination to reduce the sentence for commission of that crime from felony to misdemeanor status."

The majority countered that it was not applying the 2006 amendment retroactively, but instead factoring that "into its determination that Wilson's punishment is cruel and unusual," the court said in a news release.

The court said this kind of decision is unusual: "The majority opinion points out that this court rarely overturns a sentence on cruel and unusual grounds. But twice before, it did so following a legislative change."

Monroe County Superior Court judge ruled that Wilson's punishment was cruel and unusual and voided it on constitutional grounds.

The judge reduced the sentence to one year and said Wilson should not be put on Georgia's sex offender registry, as the old law required.

Wilson's jubilant attorneys had hoped that ruling would free him from state prison. But shortly after it was handed down, Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker announced he would appeal the decision, a move that kept Wilson behind bars.

The high court said unanimously that the decision to deny Wilson bail was correct.

Wilson's plight drew pleas for his release, including from former President Carter, an ex-Georgia governor, and even some of the jurors who convicted him.

Legislation that would make the change in Georgia's child molestation law retroactive to free Wilson failed to win approval earlier this year.

CNN's Mary Lynn Ryan contributed to this report

Never should have been in jail in the first place.

Kill a dog, go to jail, kill a Black boy and nothing happens

Hat tip: Skeptical Brotha

Kill a dog, go to jail, kill a black boy and nothing happens
Hat Tip: Court TV

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (Court TV) — A Florida jury found eight former boot camp employees not guilty of causing the death of a juvenile offender in their care.

The panel of four women and two men deliberated just 90 minutes before reaching their verdict in the trial of seven drill instructors and a nurse accused in the death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson.

Former drill instructors Henry Dickens, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr., Charles Enfinger, Joseph Walsh and nurse Kristin Schmidt could have faced up to 30 years in prison if they had been convicted of aggravated manslaughter.

The jury was also given the option of considering lesser charges of manslaughter, child neglect and misdemeanor culpable negligence — convictions that would have carried lighter sentences.

“We were innocent all along,” McFadden said. “We knew this truth would come out. As Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet read the verdicts for each of the defendants, sobs from defendants’ families grew louder.

On the other side of the courtroom, Anderson’s mother, Gina Jones, shook her head, and his father, Robert Anderson, covered his face in his hands.

The case has polarized Panama City, and throughout the week-long trial demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse, chanting and carrying signs. After the verdict was read Friday, as the defendants and their lawywers spoke with the media, people drove by shouting “Murderers,” and “They know they’re guilty.”

The Anderson family’s lawyer, Benjamin Crump, implied that race was the deciding issue in the case, in which a black teenager died after being manhandled by a group of guards that included whites, blacks and one Asian American.

“You kill a dog, you go to jail. You kill a little black boy and nothing happens,” Crump said.

In their testimony, all eight of the defendants said they were shocked and saddened by Anderson’s death. Dickens, one of the two black drill instructors involved in the incident, said he was hurt by the insults that have been leveled at him.

“They’ve been calling me an Uncle Tom, but this was never about race,” he said. “We cared about this kid. The kids are our future. I’m not going to be around for ever. We really cared about that kid.”

Defense attorneys bristled at idea that the verdict from the jury of six whites should be written off to racism.

“Two of the defendants were African-American,” said Robert Sombathy, the attorney for Garrett. “I don’t hear the NAACP trying to make an issue out of them. Race is not an issue in this case.”

Anderson, a ninth-grader who was sent to the Bay County Sheriff’s Department Juvenile Boot Camp for stealing his grandmother’s car, was only a few hours into his stay when he allegedly participated in a mandatory run for 10 minutes, then stopped and refused to continue.

During the 30-minute altercation that ensued — captured on surveillance video that attorneys for both sides repeatedly dissected during the trial — seven guards took turns restraining Anderson against a pole, pinning him to the ground and occasionally kneeing and hitting him to gain compliance.

In the melee, Schmidt stood outside the group as guards wrestled Anderson to the ground and then attempted to rouse him by waving ammonia caps under his nose.

The camp was closed a few months after the teen’s death.

Question 1 - Since when did this country abandon the 12-person jury rule in CRIMINAL TRIALS?

Question 2- Another ALL WHITE JURY? Unless this was Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Wyoming.....WHY WAS THERE AN ALL-WHITE JURY?

I know that this young man was no 'innocent'. But, he was only 14. He deserved to be written off at the age of 14? Am I not the only one offended by that? He was sent to a place like that, because they wanted to give him a chance to straighten himself out. He wasn't sent there TO BE MURDERED.

And, that is what happened to him.

HE WAS MURDERED.

He was MURDERED by a GROUP of people....and nobody is going to be held accountable for it.

Another young Black male thrown away and discarded; murdered at will, and nobody's responsible?

He was ONE child...they were a GROUP of ADULTS.....and, their only option was to MURDER HIM?

The demonization and dehumanization of our children to the point where we find excuses and justifications for their demise.

' He was a bad kid'.

' He broke the law.'

Why is it that OUR children don't get to make 'youthful mistakes'. Why are they not given the time to straighten themselves out. Either we want to lock them up and throw away the key, or, as in this case, just discard them altogether.

LOOK at the picture at the top of this post. Just LOOK at it. Don't detach yourself from it. Once again this society says that OUR children aren't worth much of anything. And, I think that's wrong. Fundamentally wrong.

______________________

Watch A Recent Congressional Hearing On the Subject of Abuse at Boot Camp Facilities

(Video link good only for approx. 2 weeks after date posted).

Jena Six - Color of Change Update

Hat tip:Jack and Jill Politics

The blog Color of Change, which has been at the forefront of The Jena Six situation from the beginning, now has a petition up to Governor Blanco of Louisiana requesting that she intervene.

Dear Governor Blanco,

I am writing to request your intervention into a situation of great injustice taking place in Jena, LA, as well as a written response to this letter.

Last fall, when two Black high school students sat under the "white" tree on their campus, white students responded by hanging nooses from the tree. When Black students protested the light punishment for the students who hung the nooses, District Attorney Reed Walters came to the school and told the students he could "take [their] lives away with a stroke of [his] pen."

Racial tension continued to mount in Jena, and the District Attorney did nothing in response to several egregious cases of violence and threats against black students. But when a white student--who had been a vocal supporter of the students who hung the nooses--taunted a black student, allegedly called several black students "nigger", and was beaten up by black students, six black students were charged with second-degree attempted murder. Thankfully, Mychal Bell’s June conviction has been nullified but all 6 young men are still awaiting trial, and remain unable to return to Jena High School and get on with their lives.

I would like to believe that what is happening in Jena is not consistent with your values, or with what the State of Louisiana sees as justice. I have asked District Attorney Reed Walters to drop all charges against the six young men. You should act immediately to make clear your commitment to justice in this case, and announce that you will grant immediate reprieves to any of the young men who are convicted. And you must investigate the conduct of District Attorney Reed Walters, whose actions are a blatant and unacceptable abuse of power, to begin the process of healing in Jena and to make sure this never happens again.

Respectfully,

There is also a letter to the DA, Mr. " I can change your life with a stroke of a pen" Walters.

Please go here to find both of them as well as the petition.

FREE THE JENA SIX

Mychal Bell Back In Jail

They're at it again.

Mychal Bell of 'Jena 6' ordered to juvenile facility

(CNN) -- A black Louisiana teenager at the center of the racially charged "Jena 6" case was ordered Thursday to spend 18 months in a juvenile facility, after a judge ruled he had violated his probation for earlier juvenile convictions, a source with knowledge of the court proceedings said.


Supporters joined Mychal Bell after he was released from jail last month.

Mychal Bell, 17, who was freed two weeks ago after his adult criminal conviction for beating a white classmate was overturned, was sent to the Renaissance Home for Youth in Alexandria, Louisiana, the source said.

The decision came at the end of a two-day juvenile court hearing that was closed to the media and public.

Carol Powell-Lexing, one of Bell's attorneys, said the judge's decision would be appealed.

Bell was freed on $45,000 bail on September 27, after an appeals court threw out his conviction on battery and conspiracy charges in adult court and remanded the case to juvenile court.

But Judge J.P. Mauffrey agreed with prosecutors that Bell had violated the probation he was given for four previous juvenile offenses, including two simple battery charges, the sources said.

Bell had been placed on probation until he turned 18.

Civil rights activist Al Sharpton, who has championed Bell's case, denounced Thursday's decision as "revenge" by the judge and called on Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco to intervene.

Rest of article here.

I told you in my very first post about this case, that this case was enough

To Turn A Negro Into a BLACK PANTHER.

It's time for Congress to have some hearings about this bunch of jokers down in Louisiana.

FREE THE JENA SIX!

An Open Letter to White Progressives About Jena

I yield the floor to Prometheus 6:

An open letter to white progressives about Jena

The Jena, LA controversy isn't over. I didn't expect it to be over this quickly, but a couple of things have happened since the recent demonstration that make me genuinely concerned about how it will eventually be resolved. What put my concerns over the top was the recent statements by the District Attorney and Mayor of Jena that indicate their sympathies are far too closely aligned with those of white supremacist organizations. But what first made me concerned was the reaction of progressive white folks...something I thought we might adjust over time by filling in the huge gaps the mainstream media has left in the story. The more I read on the Jena controversy the more I feel like the drowning guy who keeps getting water balloons lobbed at him.

I've had my emotional reaction to it already. Thinking about the entire situation I conclude I have a snowball's chance in hell of changing the minds of the Mayor or District Attorney. They are taking the hardest line possible, and as I said, there was those recent statements...

I've realized though that there are several issues conflated in most Black folks' reaction, and teasing them apart might help those progressives among you that find yourselves troubled by the Jena demonstration feel more at ease.

I'm going to start with the nooses. Yes, it strikes you as obvious, I'm sure you rolled your eyes. And you, well, you just don't think it's as bad as a kick in the head. Well, this is not an argument, it is a statement. To Black Americans, a hangman's noose send the same signal as a burning cross. There may be some differentiation with you but for most Black people there is not. And I heard that guy over there, he said they use nooses in plays, they play that “hangman” game, and I say yes the meaning of a hangman's noose is more contextual than that of a burning cross. But somehow when those nooses turn up, they are always in that context.

Again, this is not an argument, it is information for you. You should treat nooses like swastikas.

When you hear Black people say the kid got beat up because the nooses were hung, it means that is the wound that festered as opposed to the infection that was the months of subsequent brawling. That is one point.

Second, the domestic media coverage of this has been horrible beyond merely being absent. I am one of the folks who have been following the case from the first article in the Chicago Tribune. You have no idea how frustrating it was to read article after article saying “nooses were hung and a white kid got jumped,” when NPR, in the most detailed description of events I've seen, says the response to the nooses was a silent protest. The school called the police.

I watched every mainstream media outlet skip right over that. That's another point.

I can find no specifics about what happened between the beginning of the semester and Nov. 30; the NPR article just says “Fights began to break out at the high school. But that year, the football team was having an unusually good season and the black athletes were a major reason why. So while there were fights throughout the fall, nobody wanted to take any action that would hurt the team. “ All I know for certain is they bypassed a number of opportunities to resolve the issue during this time.

The next report was of a Black youth, Robert Bailey, being beat up at a mostly white party one Friday night. The District Attorney could have said that was the last straw. He did not. The next day Bailey got into an argument with one of the students at a store. The student went to get a gun from his car, and was disarmed. The District Attorney said that was the last straw...and had Bailey arrested for defending himself. Monday, two days later, Justin Barker “loudly bragging to friends in the school hallway that Robert Bailey had been whipped by a white man on Friday night,” incited a riot and got hurt. A high school brawl ensued.

Equal protection under the law would see Justin Barker compelled to identify the people that assaulted Robert Bailey, and have those people charged with the same crime. And it will not happen.

Don't worry. There's only one more point.

You, white progressives, must see that this is a real problem and not let it die. Because the discomfort of staring the reality of racism in the face so soon after Jeff Jacoby declared racism irrelevant has brought forth the inevitable diversion. The natural one is the disproportionate crime rate in the Black community. And I'm not having that discussion right now...later, perhaps. I just need you to see that this problem is not one Black people can address. It is one you must address if there is to be justice.

I need you to see that when you have a well defined issue and dump ninety-two other issues on top of it, you cannot even claim to be trying to help.

And if you're saying you need do nothing about racism until it is the last problem on Earth, I think ALL Black people need to hear that.

Thank you, P6, for your eloquence.

Will we continue to hear birds chirping from the White Progressive Blogopshere? Or, will they throw down their defensiveness and recognize the serious issue of UNEqual Justice that is NOT going away.

Mychal Bell Is Freed On Bail

Hat Tip: Skeptical Brotha:

Mychal Bell is freed on bail
September 27th, 2007


Hat Tip: Doug Simpson, Associated Press

A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate prompted a massive civil rights protest here walked out of a courthouse Thursday after a judge ordered him freed.

Mychal Bell’s release came hours after a prosecutor confirmed he will no longer seek an adult trial for the 17-year-old. Bell, one of the teenagers known as the Jena Six, still faces trial as a juvenile in the December beating.

District Attorney Reed Walters’ decision to abandon adult charges means that Bell, who had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison on his aggravated second-degree battery conviction last month, instead could be held only until he turns 21 if he is found guilty in juvenile court.

The conviction in adult court was thrown out this month by the state 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, which said Bell should not have been tried as an adult on that particular charge.

Walters credited the prayers of people in this small central Louisiana town with averting a “disaster” when tens of thousands of demonstrators descended on the town. Some critics of Walters considered that a slap against the peaceful marchers.

Now, it's time to get after that DA. Call him before Congress, Rep. Conyers. Let him explain that NYTimes Op-Ed full of lies.

Mychal Bell's Case to be heard by Juvenile Court

From CNN.com:

'Jena 6' teen's case to be heard in juvenile court, governor says

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- The case of Mychal Bell, a black teenager accused of beating a white classmate in Jena, Louisiana, will be heard in juvenile court, Louisiana's governor announced Wednesday.


Mychal Bell, 17, is accused with five others of beating Justin Barker in a school fight.

Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that she discussed Bell's case with LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters on Wednesday, and that Walters agreed not to challenge a state appeals court ruling that dismissed Bell's battery and conspiracy convictions.

The court ruled that Bell, who was 16 at the time of the beating, should have been tried in juvenile court instead of having the case transferred to adult court.

Blanco made the announcement with civil rights leaders Martin Luther King III and Al Sharpton.

Last week, they led about 15,000 marchers to Jena, a town of 3,000, to protest how authorities handled the cases of Bell and five other black teens accused of beating white high school student Justin Barker.

Many said they are angry the students, dubbed the "Jena 6," are being treated more harshly than three white students who hung nooses from an oak tree on high school property.

The white students were suspended from school but did not face criminal charges. The protesters say they should have been charged with a hate crime.


Prosecutors originally charged all six black students with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy

The black students now face charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy in the schoolyard beating.

The altercation was the culmination of racially tense events in the town, including two fights sparked by the hanging of the nooses.

CNN's Eric Marrapodi contributed to this report.

Jena Six Update - Mychal Bell Denied Bail

From USAToday.com:

Teen in 'Jena 6' case denied bail
Updated 7m ago
By Alex Brandon, AP



JENA, La. (AP) — A relative of one of the Jena Six says a judge has denied bail for Mychal Bell, the only one of the teens who is jailed in the beating of a white classmate.

Attorneys would not comment because juvenile court proceedings are secret. But the father of one of Bell's co-defendants said Bell's bail request was rejected.


Bell's mother left the courthouse in tears and refused to comment.

Bell is the only one of the group known as the Jena Six to have been tried so far in the December beating of a white classmate.


Bell was convicted of aggravated second-degree battery, which could have led to 15 years in prison. But his conviction was thrown out by a state appeals court that said he could not be tried on the charge as an adult because he was 16 at the time of the beating.

Rest of story here.

Bloggers Inspire New Civil Rights Wave

This was one of the headlines on the front page of The Chicago Tribune today. In a story by Howard Witt, he puts forth that none of this would be happening with The Jena Six without Black bloggers. He wrote:

JENA, La. - There is no single leader. There is no agreed schedule. Organizers aren't even certain where everyone is supposed to gather, let alone use the restroom. The only thing that is known for sure is that thousands of protesters are boarding buses at churches, colleges and community centers across the country this week, headed for this tiny dot on the map of central Louisiana.

What could turn out to be one of the largest civil rights demonstrations in years is set to take place here Thursday, when Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Martin Luther King III, popular black radio talk show hosts and other celebrities converge in Jena to protest what they regard as unequal treatment of African-Americans in this racially fractured Deep South town.

Yet this will be a civil rights protest literally conjured out of the ether of cyberspace, of a type that has never happened before in America—a collective national mass action grown from a grassroots word-of-mouth movement spread via Internet blogs, e-mails, message boards and talk radio.

Jackson, Sharpton and other big-name civil rights figures, far from leading this movement, have had to scramble to catch up. So, too, has the national media, which has only recently noticed a story that has been agitating many black Americans for months.

As formidable as it is amorphous, this new African-American blogosphere, which scarcely even existed a year ago, now comprises hundreds of interlinked blogs and tens of the thousands of followers who within a matter of a few weeks collected 220,000 petition signatures—and more than $130,000 in donations for legal fees—in support of six black Jena teenagers who are being prosecuted on felony battery charges for beating a white student.

Rest of the article is here:

Mr. Witt is the journalist that brought Shaquanda Cotton to the attention of Black bloggers. Sometimes when I feel discouraged or overwhelmed, I think about the community that is forming everyday. I think about the Black minds that I have the pleasure of reading. And, even if I am frustrated, what blogging has meant to me is to get in touch with other people with a similar spirit and fight. I have learned a great deal from bloggers, and the ability to connect with others is one of the greatest benefits from blogging. Whatever happens tomorrow, however many people show up in Jena, Louisiana, they are there because we were able to find a common voice and display our collective displeasure over obvious injustice.

And, if people think that Black-owned media isn't important, this story and others should point out that that's simply not the case. They might not have been the leaders, and had to be pushed into it, but pushed into it they were, and far earlier than the MSM, who still doesn't quite get it. While I have been blogging about this case for some months, I have routinely sent notices to other ' mainstream' bloggers with links and information about the case. Their willingness to completely disregard this case only makes me more determined in my own blogging. They have the 'option' to disregard cases like The Jena Six, while we, as a community, simply don't have that 'choice', because we know that if we don't speak up for these young men, the NEXT TIME, it will be a young Black male that WE KNOW. There are no six degrees of separation for Black folk and bad stories about the Criminal Justice System. If there are two degrees, you feel lucky.

This case, at its core, is about a town and system that continues to think that they can abuse our children, have two sets of rules, and judge our children more harshly while we stand around doing nothing. Doing nothing is no longer acceptable, not that it ever was.


FREE THE JENA SIX!

Support The Jena Six on Thursday, 9/20

Thursday, September 20, 2007, there will be a march in Jena, Louisiana in support of The Jena Six. For those of us who cannot march tomorrow, show your solidarity by wearing all Black clothing.


FREE THE JENA SIX!

Jena Six Update-Bell Conviction Tossed!

From CNN.com:



(CNN) -- A Louisiana appeals court Friday vacated the remaining conviction of a teenager accused in a violent, racially charged incident in Jena, Louisiana, his attorney said.


Mychal Bell's defense team will be filing a motion to get him out of prison.

Bob Noel said the 3rd District Court of Appeals in Lake Charles threw out the conviction for second degree battery against Mychal Bell, saying the charges should have been brought in juvenile court.

"We're happy now, but tomorrow is another day," Noel told reporters.

The future of the case against Bell is up to the district attorney, who must decide whether to refile the charges in juvenile court, Noel said.

"We have to wait and see what the other side's going to do, how they're going to react," he said. Watch CNN's Susan Roesgen explain the case »

Bell's defense team would be filing a motion to get him out of prison, where he has been since his arrest in December, Noel said.

"The primary concern is to get Mychal Bell out of jail and into school where he needs to be," he said.

Bell, who is now 17, was 16 at the time of the fight in December 2006.

Earlier this month, a district court judge vacated a conviction for conspiracy to commit second degree battery, saying that charge should have been brought in juvenile court.

He left standing the second degree battery conviction, however.

A sentencing hearing that had been scheduled for September 20 is now off, he said.

The Revs. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton had been planning to join a rally in support of Bell on that date, The Associated Press reported.

Bell and five other members of what has become known as the "Jena 6" were initially charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit attempted murder in connection with the December 4 beating of a white student.


Charges against Bell were reduced, as were charges against Carwin Jones and Theodore Shaw, who have not yet come to trial.

Robert Bailey, Bryant Purvis and an unidentified juvenile remain charged with attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.


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FREE THE JENA SIX!!

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