The CNN truck was back in front of the LaSalle Parish courthouse yesterday morning; but they didn’t have much to report. Bryant Purvis has finally been arraigned, a full eleven months after the assault on Justin Barker. As Sherrel Wheeler-Stewart’s article (below) reports, Bryant is playing basketball for a Dallas High School and trying to stay positive. When I asked him how his season was going, a big smile spread across his face. “I’m a beast,” he told me, “nobody can stop me.” I reached up, way up, and gave Bryant a pat on the back. At six-foot-six, he reminds me of my son, Adam, who was played high school basketball during a four-year fight for justice.
Anyone who has glanced through the eye witness accounts of the December 4th incident realizes that Bryant Purvis had nothing to do with the assault on Justin Barker. District Attorney Reed Walters didn’t arraign the gifted young man until yesterday because he hoped Bryant would “flip” on his friends. But Bryant was 30 feet from the incident and has no idea what happened. That’s what he told me in January–that’s what he’s saying now.
My guess is that Reed Walters will wait until all the other cases have been adjudicated before quietly dropping the charges on Mr. Purvis.
How long will this sword of Damocles dangle over the head of Bryant Purvis and his family?
It’s hard to say. As I suggest in the story below, many people have the mistaken belief that “Jena” is over. How anyone could think that after the recent re-arrest of Mychal Bell I’m not sure. My fear is that people invested so much emotional capital in the September 20th event that they have nothing left.
The fight in Jena is a marathon, not a sprint. A sprint requires ten seconds of intense concentration; a marathon demands patience, endurance and a high pain threshold. Suck it up, folks, there may be a long road ahead for the Jena 6.
Friends of Justice has been calling for the recusal of DA Reed Walters and Judge J.P. Mauffray from the beginning. We have also been calling for a change of venue–preferably to a location where an all-white jury isn’t a foregone conclusion.
The legal teams working for the Jena 6 are have been putting together state-of-the-art recusal and change of venue motions. If the substance of these motions is ever argued in open court, Reed Walters’ professional reputation will be badly damaged, and the prosecutor knows it. Hence, there is a possibility that the fate of the Jena 6 will be settled out of court, but if this hasn’t happened by Christmas it could take years for these cases to be tried. Each case will probably be adjudicated in a different venue. The cost, on both sides, will be staggering.
The legal system is designed to keep the cost of prosecuting indigent defendatns to an absolute minimum. That is why only 5% of criminal cases (on both the state and federal levels) are tried before a jury. Defendants who can bankroll investigators and qualified attorneys get Tier 1 justice; those who must make do with a court appointed attorney get Tier 2 justice. Tier 1 justice is expensive and time consuming. Tier 2 trials are lightning fast, brutally efficient and almost always end badly for the defendant no matter how shoddy the evidence.
The Jena 6 would all be serving long prison sentences if they had to rely on Tier 2 justice. Tier 2 justice usually ends in a first round knock out, with the referee and the state working as tag team partners. Tier 1 justice is like two well-prepared fighters, circling, feinting, sizing each other up, looking for an opening. Tier 1 justice is slow justice.
But when the punches begin to fly in a Tier 1 courtroom, it’s total war. Like most court appointed defense attorneys, Reed Walters has little experience with the slow deliberation of Tier 1 justice, and he knows it. The man needs a little time to consider his options. So let’s just stand back, take a deep breath, and wait for the slow, sure wheels of Tier 1 justice to turn.
Charges Reduced for Last Jena Six Member
Charges were reduced Wednesday for Bryant Purvis, the last of six Jena, La., youths accused of attacking a white schoolmate in December, following several weeks of racial tension in the tiny, rural town.
Purvis, 18, now faces charges of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery, said his attorney Darrell Hickman. A trial date has been set for March 2008.
The charges carry a maximum possible sentence of 22 years, Hickman told BlackAmericaweb.com. Earlier charges that had included attempted second-degree murder carried a possible maximum sentence of 75 years imprisonment upon conviction.
Purvis, who now lives in Dallas where he attends a private school, pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyer said they are preparing for a vigorous defense and will also request a change of venue.
“The best thing for Bryant has been that he got out of Jena,” Hickman said. “His family saw the need to get him removed from all of this.”
The reduction in charges was not a surprise, Hickman said.
“We expected to get a reduction in the charges in light of what had happened with Mychal Bell and the others,” Hickman said. Charges have now been reduced for all of the youths in the case who are accused of beating Justin Barker unconscious at Jena High School.
LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters has said the charges were stiff because the attack was vicious and more than a schoolyard fight.
Charges were reduced for Mychal Bell first this summer, and he was convicted of battery. Later, a Louisiana appeals court overturned that sentence and said Bell’s case should be handled in juvenile court because of his age at the time of the alleged incident. Bell has since been sent to a juvenile facility because Judge J.P.Mauffrey said by fighting in December he violated the terms of parole from an earlier, unrelated case.
The case of the six Jena youths prompted U.S. Rep. John Conyers to convene a hearing on the matter before the House Judiciary Committee last month. And in September, it brought together more than 20,000 people from across the country for one of the biggest civil rights protests in recent history.
Activists say Jena has two separate systems of justice for blacks and whites. Whites who hung nooses at the school in August 2006 were suspended several days. Walters has said there were no hate crime laws in Louisiana that would apply to the hanging of the nooses by the high school students.
The black students, who also were in high school at the time of the alleged incident, were arrested, jailed and expelled from school. They also had bond amounts set as high as $130,000. Only two of the six youths currently are in school according to family and friends.
Support for the Jena Six continued on Wednesday, with rallies coordinated by the Answer Coalition in at least 11 cities.
“We had a good group of people. About 50,” said Chris Gonsalves, a coordinator for the rally in Boston. “It was cold, but people still came out. When we started it was around in the 40s, then it dropped to the high 30s.”
For Gonsalves and the others who came out Jena is real, though it’s more than a thousand miles away, he said.
When he was told of Wednesday’s court results, Gonsalves said: “That’s another sign of the strength of support for the Jena Six.”
Tuesday night, some organizers of Jena Six supporters, a majority of the attorneys involved and all of the families got together to discuss the case.
Alan Bean of the Texas-based Friends of Justice said all who participated agreed not to discuss the specifics of that meeting with others. But he described it as “a very positive experience.”
“This was an incredible assemblage of attorneys,” Bean said. “Some of the best lawyers in the country are involved in this case.”
While he is encouraged by the work of the various legal teams, Bean said he is concerned that some supporters have the perception that the worst is behind the Jena Six.
“Really, they are just starting,” Bean said, adding that all six have to face trials and lawyers are working to get cases moved from Jena to other areas of the state. Some lawyers also have filed motions seeking to get LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters and Judge J.P. Mauffrey removed from the case.
“Our position all along has been that we just want these young men to have the justice they deserve,” Bean said.
Friends of Justice 
We have different perspectives, Alan, but I agree with much that you wrote here – although I would argue that a middle tier also exists.
As you say, the Jena issue is far from over. Even the new judge who will decide the media access suit set a date that seemed too far into the future. The slow pace of the US court system singly defeats many attempts by activists to maintain a high profile. The news media can only rehash the same story so many times, and distinctly separate from hard news coverage, I find it difficult to imagine that commentators like Nancy Grace, who can flip sides on an issue over a commercial break, give much benefit to either side of a case.
The Jena cases absolutely demand a change of venue. Looking back at the court dates strongly suggests (though it does not prove) that Walters was hoping someone would flip, and I would not be at all surprised that he was fishing for a school arsonist moreso than just another head stomper. I suspect that that was Walters’s plan in charging them with attempted murder, to leverage that higher charge to extract a snitch. I doubt Walters really gave much of a flip about who beat Barker; this prosecutor wants to nail an arsonist. That burned school is the elephant in the living room.