Biased judged puts Mychal Bell back in jail

‘Jena 6’ teen Mychal Bell back in jail

JENA, La. - A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy is back in jail after a judge sentenced him on charges that were pending before the attack that put him in the national spotlight, his attorney said Thursday.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers had been accused of beating a white classmate, went to juvenile court Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell’s attorneys.

Instead, after a six-hour hearing, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced him to 18 months on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

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American justice is grand isn't it?

of property? Was this a frame? Where are the details?

acmavm, the article says these charges were pending before he attacked the other student. How can it be a frame?

And as far as I know, he had been keeping his nose clean. They are now saying that the fight violated the terms and sent him to jail because of that.

Now aside from the fact that it really hasn't been proven to a lot of people's satisfaction that Mychal Bell was even involved, this same judge is proving himself to be a vindictive prick which certainly is compelling me to feel even more strongly that this is a case built on racism. Keep in mind that this is the same judge that granted the kid bai when he was being tried as an adult. Parents couldn't make bail which is why he sat. Once the 3rd circit court threw out the conviction on appeal and at that point having no charges on him at all, the judge denied bail because he said Mychal was a danger to the community. So what the hell happened during the time he was in jail. There were no reports of any misbehavior while in custody. So why was he now, all of a sudden , this major threat to the community.

Lawyers for the NAACP forced his hand and bail was reluctantl granted with the following conditions: House arrest, No school. Could not move 50 plus feet from his residence, Couldn't attend church, Couldn't speak to the media. And now this.

Add the fact that that the parents now have to pay $600 per month in fees for his incarceration, this all smells like a "Don't fuck with us Niggers moment"

I'm not following you here.

shouldn't be considered payment for a school fight. A fight which according to eye witness Coach Benjy Lewis, Mychal Bell was not involved in.

before the school fight happened.

Why don't people actually READ LINKS PROVIDED before they post? It would save a lot of time, aggravation and embarrassment.

It's about as dumb as the OP calling the judge "biased" for doing his job.

But then that would eliminate like at least half the posts on DU. :)

I've seen a lot of posts where someone reacts to the headline and never reads the whole post or links provided.

:hi:

The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) calls for the immediate release of Mychal Bell, one of the six high school students who have come to be known as the “Jena 6.” The Guild also calls for all charges against the Jena 6 to be dropped, and for the investigation and disbarment of Judge J.P. Mauffray and District Attorney Reed Walters.

Judge J.P. Mauffray and DA Reed Walters have engaged in a string of egregious actions, the most recent of which was the denial of bail for Bell on Friday. The NLG urges that: 1) The United States Department of Justice convene an immediate inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the arrests and prosecutions of the Jena 6; 2) Judge Mauffray be recused from presiding over Bell’s juvenile court hearings or other proceedings; 3) The Louisiana Office of Disciplinary Counsel investigate Reed Walters for unethical and possibly illegal conduct; 4) The Louisiana Judiciary Commission investigate Judge Mauffray for unethical conduct; and 5) The Jena school district superintendent be removed from office.

“Contrary to what Reed Walters and J.P. Mauffray may think, Jena is subject to the same Constitution that the rest of the United States is,” remarked Kerry McLean, member of the executive board of the NLG.

“There have been numerous, brazen violations of the constitutional rights of the Jena 6.” McLean continued, “In addition to the constitutional violations, Walters and Mauffray have breached the ethical requirements of their offices. They should be made to answer for all of this.”

"The double standard of justice in Jena, one for black students and another for whites, is emblematic of the racism that still permeates many towns throughout the South and the country as a whole. There must be an immediate and full investigation of judicial and prosecutorial malfeasance in Jena, Louisiana," said Marjorie Cohn, President of the NLG.

There is an unequal justice system in Jena, where blacks are routinely the victims of discriminatory and oppressive treatment by officials.

He was Mychal Bell, criminal defendant, before he was part of the Jena 6.

Are you having trouble keeping up with the context of this?

Article link

It was in the post, I obviously punctuated the link incorrectly.

I didn't think that anybody denied that there was a fight and one guy wound up in the hospital and that Mychal Bell was involved, right? The problem was that he was given 22 years for it, not that he was tried for it or even found guilty. 18 months doesn't seem extreme to me.

Many people feel that it should be time served. This has happened in many other cases.

That is in dispute. There was at least one adult eyewitness that says that there wasn't even a fight but that the victim was knocked out from a single blow from behind and the person delivering that blow was NOT Mychal Bell.

It is extreme when you look at the fact that this is the same judge who had no problem granting bail and who did not violate him a year ago when he had no problem trying and convicting him as an adult. But after he gets slapped down by a court of appeals and 50,000 people show up to protest the unequal disposition of justice that he renders these bullshit ruling.

And not only does Bell go back to jail but his parents now have to apy $600 plus per month towards his incarceration.

Do you have an update on that case, flashl?

Or no charges were brought, I don't quite remember

That is the problem that a lot of us with these prosecutions. There were several incidents in which the behavior of white participants rose to the level of what these 6 are being charged with. Yet there has not been a single charge brought against any of them. Yet these young men were and still are looking at some pretty heavy time.

It's not only about justice, it's about EQUAL justice. If you are going to put a standard of justice against these young Black men then you damn better apply the same standard when White studets do the same damn thing

committed jailable offenses, then both sides should be sitting in a friggin' cell.

I'm just curious tho. Where's the link to the thread where the beating victim took a gun to school, and why did he do it? Did he think he was gonna get a beating?

Also, who else was physically assaulted? Anyone?

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/1413220

http://www.colorofchange.org/jena/message.html

I had another link that had great info. I will try to find

I think that we're being baited into saying that a black kid must skate free on all charges, all the time. Of course, that is not what we've been saying at all.

Another thing: it's striking how often some people mention Bell's other scrapes with the law (just goes to show you he's a bad seed), but for some reason Barker's own arrest record and open belligerence on the day of the beating are never allowed to detract from his Innocent Victim (tm) status.

That's exactly what that prosecutor calls him still, even after his weapons violation arrest: "the innocent victim".

If anyone has paid any attention to what the Black community feels about this case, you will hear 3 common strains of thought

1. The charges brought against these kids were way out of proportion to what allegedly happened
2. That if they were guilty of a school fight that SOME type of punishment was warranted
3. That all transgressors who were involved in this series of events should be dealty with EQUALLY

The only punishment that I know of that was applied to any of the White kids involved here was a suspension for the kids who hung the nooses. And that was eventually overturned. Yet these Black kids are having the jail dropped on them.

And unfortunately, this is no longer just about Mychal Bell. Isn't it interesting how we have read a lot of accounts about nooses being hyng somewhere since this story gained legs.

On May 10, police arrested Justin Barker, 17, the white victim of the Dec. 4 beating. He was alleged to have a rifle loaded with 13 bullets stashed behind the seat of his pickup truck parked in the school lot. Barker told police he had forgotten it was there and had no intention of using it.

He was booked and released on $5000 bond.

If he did the crime--should he do the time?

Many other people have that considered "time served". Why wasn't this option afforded to Mychal Bell?

He was on probation for some prior incidents. From all accounts, he was keeping his nose clean

The judge, who was recently overturned on appeal, is now saying that because of the fight that occurred, he violated his probation.

But central to this entire case is the possibility that Bell was NOT involved.

So how can he be in violation when it hasn't been proven he did the act that he's now being violated on?

there had to be a trial. If the trial was unfair (which I think is highly likely), he should be re-tried.

I think it is important for this to be done fairly. Completely fairly. Mychal Bell should be treated like any other person, black or white, with his previous record who is suspected of committing a crime. He needs to have a fair trial, he needs to get a fair sentence. The whole thing doesn't need to be dropped and he shouldn't serve MORE time than another person (white) in the same situation would.

It's going to happen.

The adult conviction was thrown out. He will now be tried as a juvenile. The adult trial had problems to say the least.

His attorneys have a motion before the 3rd circuit to get the judge taken off the case.

I think with competent attorneys and a fair trail, from everything I read, this kid may be acquitted

This judge is the only judge in town and people are trying to get the judge dismissed or recused from this case. If that doesn't happen they want a change in venue.

Senator Webb on Oct 4, 2007. Hearing on mass incareration

Over the course of the period from the mid-1970s until today, the United States has embarked on one of the largest public policy experiments in our history, yet this experiment remains shockingly absent from public debate: the United States now imprisons a higher percentage of its citizens than any other country in the world.

In the name of “getting tough on crime,” there are now 2.1 million Americans in federal, state, and local prisons and jails -- more people than the populations of New Mexico, West Virginia, or several other states. Compared to our democratic, advanced market economy counterparts, the United States has more people in prison by several orders of magnitude.

All tolled, more than 7 million Americans are under some form of correction supervision, including probation and parole.

America’s incarceration rate raises several serious questions. These include: the correlation between mass imprisonment and crime rates, the impact of incarceration on minority communities and women, the economic costs of the prison system, criminal justice policy, and transitioning ex-offenders back into their communities and into productive employment. Equally important, the prison system today calls into question the effects on our society more broadly.

As Winston Churchill noted in 1910, “The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country.” With the world’s largest prison population, our prisons test the limits of our democracy and push the boundaries of our moral identity.

The growth in the prison population is only nominally related to crime rates. Just last week in the Washington Post, the deputy director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics stated that “the growth wasn’t really about increase crime but how we chose to respond to crime.”

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I have read report after report and study after study on mass incarceration and came to the same conclusion as the panelist at the JEC hearing. Everybody, Bureau of Prison, Juvenile Justice, and Researchers are all asking WHY are the incarceration numbers going UP if crime is going down?

issue. ....issue from what appears to be systematic unequal prosecution of black and white youths. The answer is to adjudicate white youths as aggressively as black youths.

But the two issues overlap and its difficult to untangle. How can anyone feel good about this judge making this decision? Will white youths ever be prosecuted and adjudicated as aggressively as black youths? Does Bell have to be set free in order for the systematic discrimination in Jena to cease?

But my position is that the whatever he did, it was adjudicated at that poin in time to warant probation and not jail time.

His involvement in the fight has not been proven. So how can we send him to jail on a violation for an incident that he hasn't been found guilty of?

And why do Blacks have to bear the brunt of unequal applications of justice all the time?

I don't think it typically rises to "beyond reasonable doubt" or that specific details need to be proven. If a court administrator believed he was involved in the fight at all, he could be in violation of the terms of his probation for battery.

But again, since this is the judge that was snubbed by the appeals court --- its just tainted ugly.

You asked, "And why do Blacks have to bear the brunt of unequal applications of justice all the time?" I wish I had a satisfying answer, but I don't. Sorry.

I'm no lawyer so that may be the case.

It's just that this guy has just shown himself to be vindictive. I mean, he grants bail during the adult trial but whn that case gets thrown out, he all of a sudden decides the kid is such a menance that he doesn't qualify for bail.

And now his parents have to pay $600 a month to the state for "incarceration" fees? In the same week that he father gets canned?

This just smells like an attempt to show this family and by extension, all of Black America that we can go screw ourselves.

You can't just ignore anything the kid has ever done. This was a separate circumstance.

This disposition of that case was he was sentenced to probation.

The judge is now saying that becuase he was Allegedly in this fight, he violated the terms of his probation and is mow sentencing him on terms that he would have been had he not been deemed eligible for probabtion..As of this very minutes Bell has not been proven guilty by a court of law of anything other than the chrages for which he was granted probation.

So how can he be violated on a charge of which he is currently, at least according to the law, innocent?

Was one of the boys who hung the noose on the tree. One of the other 6 has witnesses that support his claim that he was not even involved in the site and was watching from a distance.

And it's even more interesting how people are willing to delve into Bell's past and pronounce judgements about how he is currently being treated yet they can't look at how this trial was conducted and see if maybe, just maybe it was rigged.

It's amazing to me how many people just matter of factly say that Bell beat this kid up. On whose word? The word of the witness that you just cited? Or the word of the female witness who couldn't remember jack squat a day after the fight but could remember everything at trial? A trial in which one of the jurors just happned to go to school with her father?

The fact that one of white boys pulled a rifle on one of the black student and when the black student took the rifle away from he was was charged with theft. The boy who drew the gun on another person was not charged with anything.

When you lay out the entire case there is no way that you can't see the injustice.

It's also amazing to me that people continue to focus on a school fight and have convicted all 6.

do not have a problem ignoring the offenses of the other students. The Fair Barn beating of the Bailey boy. The Gotta Go gun incident. The Barker boy bringing a loaded gun to school.

:eyes:

In most of the south.
Plus this is retaliation against him
starting protests and speaking up.

It's meant as a message to Black people that they have no power. It's a message that the "law" can do anything (end your life with a pen) and there's nothing we can do about it. It's a message to Black people to 'stay in their place'. They needed to send a message that it would be a waste of time for black people to stand up against injustice.

to ascend on Jena again to get justice?

That judge is the one that should be serving jail time.