I hold the Lafayette Daily Advertiser in high regard.  In 2006, they published my trial blogging on the Colomb case and gave the trial extensive coverage.  Inmates reading this coverage were motivated to step forward and inform defense counsel that perjury mills were running within the prison system.  Now the Daily Advertiser is editorializing in favor of legislation designed to make the hanging of the noose (except on private property) a hate crime.

The article makes specific reference to Jena and disimisses the notion, popular in that central Louisiana town, that the message of the noose symbol is ambiguous and relatively innocuous. 

I would direct you, however, to the comments at the bottom of the editorial . . . just more racist blather.  The coverage of the Colomb trial received the same response; everybody was sure they were guilty because they had been charged.  Three months later they were released and fully exonerated.  There are solid grounds for opposing restrictions on speech, but the folks commenting here just don’t think hate is a big deal.  The solution, it appears, is to focus even more attention on the behavior of black folks so that even more African Americans can go to prison. 

It is hardly surprising that Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world.