Funds Raised for Jena Six Defense Covering Legal Fees, but Monies Drying Up, Activists Say

 http://www.blackamericaweb.com/site.aspx/bawnews/jenasixmoney1023

Date: Tuesday, October 23, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaweb.com

As thousands rallied in a Jena, Louisiana ballpark on Sept. 20 to support six black youths facing stiff charges for fighting a white school mate, realtor Robert Clark climbed atop his recreational vehicle with a public address system and went to work raising money.

“I was looking at all the slogans — ‘Free Mychal Bell’ and ‘Free the Jena Six,’” Clark told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “I said we can raise enough to free Mychal Bell right now if everyone puts in $2.”

His goal was to raise about $10,000 to bail Bell out of jail. He ended up raising about $27,000, with the first contribution of 500 $1 bills coming from a Monroe, Louisiana motorcycle rider. A Louisiana doctor paid Bell’s bail. The money raised by Clark was handed over to Louis Scott, the lead attorney for Bell.

In the weeks since thousands flooded the tiny Louisiana town calling for equal justice, groups raising funds for the defense say the inward flow of money has tapered off.

The Color of Change, a California-based group that began accepting contributions for the Jena Six’s defense early in the case, reported raising about $230,000 to help pay lawyers and court expenses. To date, $170,000 has been paid, said James Rucker, executive director of Color of Change. Lawyers representing five of the six youths have received money. The organization is awaiting invoices from a sixth attorney, Rucker said.

“The fund was building and building, then it peaked just after Sept. 20,” Rucker told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “After a week or so, it slowed down.”

The organization is planning later to restart its aggressive fundraising because the families face additional legal expenses that have not been met, he said.

The NAACP has been accepting contributions on behalf of the Jena Six for several weeks through its website and regular mail, said Richard McIntire, spokesman for the national organization.

“We’ve received hundreds of contributions. The average contribution has been $42. The largest contribution has been the $10,000 from David Bowie,” McIntire told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We were asked by the Louisiana state NAACP chapter to assist in fundraising because it was believed that some supporters would feel more comfortable contributing to a national organization they were more familiar with.”

The monies collected by NAACP will be distributed equitably among the families of the six youths to be used for expenses, McIntire said. He could not release the total amount collected by NAACP for Jena youths to date.

Another Jena Six defense fund is being handled by the families of the youths. Efforts by BlackAmericaWeb.com to reach the families to discuss fundraising were unsuccessful.

Across the country people, launched efforts large and small to raise monies for defense once word of the students’ plight began spreading.

In Tampa, Fla., a group of poets and spoken word artists organized an event on Sept. 20 and raised more than $2,000, said Lizz Straight, a Tampa-based spoken word artist.

“I got a money order and sent it all to the post office box in Jena designated for the Jena Defense Fund,” Straight told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “We just wanted to do something.”

Some fundraising efforts have also been subjected to suspicion.

“Just as I was standing on my RV raising money, there was another guy on the back of a pick-up truck who said he was raising money for Jena Six,” said Clark. “No one knows what happened to that money.”

Also, some conservative Web sites have charged that some of the money raised on behalf of the Jena Six has been used for cars and jewelry for family members.

Alan Bean of the Texas-based Friends of Justice said he believes money being raised for the Jena Six is being spent properly.

“Any time you have a situation where informal accounting is used, it is possible that there will be the perception that funds are being mishandled,” Bean told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“Robert Clark’s passing of the hat on Sept. 20 has been our biggest single fundraiser to date,” Bell’s attorney Louis Scott told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “Though some folks may think everything is over, there is still more to come,” he said.

Mychal Bell, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Robert Bailey Jr., and a juvenile were arrested after a Dec. 4 fight with Justin Barker at Jena High school. The fight followed weeks of tension in the school touched off just as school started in August when whites hung nooses in a tree. Blacks had sat under that tree that was a traditional gathering post for whites.

The students who hung the nooses were suspended from school for several days and given in-school suspension, though their action was later called a hate crime by federal officials.

The black youths were jailed and faced bonds of up to $138,000.

Bell was convicted this summer in the case, but it was overturned. He was released on bail, and his bond was reduced a week after the Sept. 20 rally. Then about two weeks ago, State District Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. — the same judge who had him locked up in an adult jail — ordered him placed into custody, saying that he violated terms of parole from an earlier juvenile incident and sentencing him to 18 months.

Bell’s case is now being handled in juvenile court since an appeals court in September overturned his conviction in adult court. Several of the six have court motions pending in early November, lawyers said.

Because Bell’s case is now in juvenile court, the record of proceedings is sealed.

The Associated Press on Monday joined more than two dozen other organizations, including newspapers, television networks and network affiliates, in filing a court petition that challenges a judge’s decision to seal Bell’s case and close court proceedings to the news media and public.

The group seeks permission to attend upcoming hearings in the case, to review transcripts of previous hearings and other court records and to lift a gag order against participants in the case.

Judge Mauffray’s restrictions “substantially limit the (media’s) ability to report to the public the facts about this significant case and unconstitutionally stifle the flow of information to the public,” the petition claims.

Lawyers for the news organizations filed the petition in the 28th Judicial District Court in LaSalle Parish, the court where Bell’s case is being heard. Mauffray is expected to hear the petition, according to Mary Ellen Roy, a lawyer for the news organizations.

Mauffray’s secretary, Bobbie Smith, said Monday afternoon that the judge hadn’t received the petition.

Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell’s lawyers, said the case should be open to the public. District Attorney Reed Walters, she added, “opened the door” for that when he publicly discussed Bell’s prior criminal history.

“This is a highly publicized case,” she said. “The nation has a right to know what’s going on with it.”

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Associated Press contributed to this report.