Texas Justice

Or specifically, Linden, TX justice:

After a mentally disabled black man was found beaten, unconscious, and shivering on a fire ant mound in 2003, four white men charged in the crime could have faced 10 years in prison.

But folks in this poor, pine-locked Texas hamlet of 2,300 say they knew better.

On Friday, the four young men accused of severely injuring 44-year-old Billy Ray Johnson during a late-night pasture party are expected to be sentenced to probation or brief jail time after juries rejected more serious charges and recommended suspended sentences for two of them.

The victim survived the attack but can't walk without help or speak clearly.

Some white residents believe it is a fair outcome for a few "good boys" from prominent families with no previous legal trouble. But other residents, blacks and whites, say the sentences are far from fair and just another example of justice being tainted by small-town politics, racism and a court system that favors whites.

I make the distinction for Linden, TX as opposed to Jasper, TX which is a mere (in Texas terms) 154 miles away. Jasper was the scene of the dragging death of James Byrd and while all the citizens of Jasper are not exemplary, I would have been shocked to see them make remarks like this:

Dennis Spears, 59, a white man whose owns a countertop business in town, said he was struck by the verdicts but empathized with the plight of young boys making bad choices under peer pressure.

"Only thing I saw about it, they oughtn't to have dumped him. They could have taken him to the hospital just as easy," Spears said as he drank coffee at a country store with friends. "Things just got out of hand."

But R.C. Taylor, a white retired heavy equipment operator and barber, said the boys didn't deserve harsh punishment.

"It's been handled good as far as I'm concerned. They ought not to have been tried at all," Taylor said. "I think they should be turned loose, set free, with a slap on the wrist. It was just one of those things."

Just reverse the race of the victim and the perpetrators in your mind if you don't find this worrisome.

Hat tip to Mark Kleiman.

Comments

[dk]

This is not only worrisome, it is outrageous!

[ckennedy]

What sorry excuses for human beings.

[The Heretik]

I'm not sure what is sadder: the actions or the apologies for them. Either way this event and its response are a reminder of how casually brutality is both condoned and accepted. If no one knows about such things, little can be done to change the attitudes that allow them.

[jb]

Re: James Byrd & Objective Reporting

Much has been made of Byrd's horrific death, and rightfully so--no human being deserves such a fate.

But it is also important to the story to know that Byrd was hardly an innocent himself. He was an ex-con who was quite fond of bullying everyone--especially whites who were not as big or as strong as was he. He had a very similar rep in prison, and the street story (most often the straightest dope) is--he got a payback from others in the pen who were tired of him beating them up all the time.

In any case--

In any story--

There is more than meets the eye, and more than the press reports. If you have not fully researched the Byrd story, then it does merit inclusion as an example of or for any other story.

[Randy Paul]

If as you said "no human being deserves such a fate" as James Byrd's, why does it matter if "Byrd was hardly an innocent himself?"

It's irrelevant.