Friends:

This story was cobbled together from stories written by Mary Foster of the Associated Press. It is a kind of “town divided” story, similar in many ways to the kind of cautious coverage the Tulia story received early on.

The most significant comment comes from the father of Justin Barker’s girlfriend. He notes (correctly, I assume) that there haven’t been any school fights at Jena High School since the Jena 6 were arrested. I have heard this argument from the editors of the Jena Times as well. I suspect the entire string of violence leading up to the assault at the high school could have been avoided if local authorities had simply lynched one of the young black men who initially protested the hanging of the nooses. That would have nipped things in the bud.

Alternatively, the district attorney and the school superintendent could have avoided this mess by responding to the “noose incident” like the hate crime it was. If the white students who hung the nooses (and their numerous supporters) had been informed that overt acts of racial terror were not acceptable at Jena High or anywhere else in LaSalle Parish, a new day of racial harmony might have ensued.

Unfortanately, the DA and the Superintendent weren’t at liberty to take that kind of stand because it would have put them at odds with too many prominent white residents. So Reed Walters was brought in to wave his pen at the student protesters and issue his now infamous threat: “With a stroke of my pen I can make your lives disappear.”

These public servants could have provided some principled leadership; instead they chose to respond with craven cowardice and backwoods bigotry. In the process, Reed Walters surrended the moral authority to prosecute the Jena 6.

Alan Bean

Friends of Justice

(806)729-7889

Please consider supporting the work of Friends of Justice, and keep us organizing across Texas and Louisiana! You can donate securely on Paypal by following this link. Thanks to all those who have already given!

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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/DN-schoolfight_08tex.ART.State.Edition1.43a798f.html

Questions of racism arise in Louisiana

Black teens’ trials in beating of white classmate have small town on edge

07:29 AM CDT on Sunday, July 8, 2007

From Wire Reports Mary Foster, The Associated Press

JENA, La. – It’s not yet 8 a.m. but there’s a line of men waiting for a $10 haircut at Doughty’s Westside Barber Shop.

BILL HABER/The Associated Press

Marcus Jenkins (left) and Melissa Bell (right) discuss the trial of their son, Mychal Bell, with Felicia Howard. Mychal is one of six black teens accused of beating a white classmate.

The conversation usually runs to hunting and fishing.

Not lately.

At the end of June, the first trial took place for one of six black teenagers accused of attempted murder, aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy after a white classmate was attacked.

“I don’t think we’re racist here,” barber shop owner Billy Doughty, 70, said. “People work together, go to school together. We never talk about race.”

But Mr. Doughty does not cut black men’s hair.

“That’s the thing about working for yourself,” he said. “I don’t do shaves. I don’t do shampoos. I don’t cut black hair. I don’t think it’s racist. I just don’t do it.”

And that, many black people say, is the key to race relations here – you’ll get along as long as you don’t want much.

“This is a good town to live in for things like no crime, it being peaceful,” said Caseptla Bailey, whose son is facing attempted murder charges. “But it’s very racist, and they don’t even try to hide it. ”

Last fall, racial tension built at Jena High School.

Tempers rose after a black student sat under a tree on campus where white students traditionally met. The next morning, three nooses – symbols of lynching in the old South – were hung in the tree.

“That was just a prank,” Mr. Doughty said. “They had those nooses from a football rally. They had used them to hang the mascot from the other team. There wasn’t anything racist in that.”

School officials suspended for three days the students who hung the nooses.

Black residents saw the incident differently.

“When a black person sees a noose, he doesn’t laugh,” Ms. Bailey said. “They don’t stand for anything funny for us.”

The outcry

On Dec. 4, six black students allegedly jumped Justin Barker, 18, who is white, beating and kicking him.

A motive for the attack was never established, but two witnesses during Mychal Bell’s trial said they heard one of the attackers shout that Mr. Barker had been “running his mouth.”

Mr. Barker was treated at a hospital emergency room, and pictures shown during Mr. Bell’s trial showed him with cuts on a swollen face. He was released after three hours, he said, and that same evening went to a school function. But he said he took pain medicine for about a week and a half.

Mr. Bell, a star athlete, was tried on reduced charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy. He was found guilty and could face as much as 22 years in prison. Sentencing is set for July 31.

Trials for Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis, Carwin Jones and Theodore Shaw, all 18, who still face attempted murder and conspiracy charges, and an unidentified juvenile have not been set.

There was immediate outcry by black residents when the attempted murder charges were filed. The group was charged for what was essentially another school fight in which the victim was not even hospitalized, Ms. Bailey and others said.

“I’ll tell you one thing, when the DA filed attempted murder charges against them, the fights at school stopped,” said Tommy Randall, whose daughter, Kari, is Mr. Barker’s girlfriend.

Such charges are a “vast overreach,” said David Utter, director of the Juvenile Justice Program of Louisiana. He felt the bond set for the youths – $138,000 for Mr. Bailey, later reduced, and $90,000 for the other defendants, was likewise out of line.

The American Civil Liberties Union has been in town since March monitoring the case. The group is also trying to obtain records from District Attorney Reed Walters to see if black and white suspects are charged differently in similar cases.

“We want to see what charges have been filed so we can look and see if there is a pattern of charging blacks differently from whites,” said Tory Pegram with ACLU of Louisiana.

The ACLU has also helped residents form an NAACP chapter.

Life in Jena

Jena has about 3,000 residents, and only about 350 are black. Many residents know each other by name, and outside the courthouse, black and white citizens exchanged friendly greetings, hugged each other and chatted.

It’s a great place to live in many ways, said John Jenkins, father of Carwin Jones.

“I work with white people, play baseball with them, coach their kids,” Mr. Jenkins said. “Before this happened, I can’t say I really had a problem. Not that we really hang out together. Whites and blacks don’t really socialize.”

Cleveland Riser, 74, a former assistant superintendent of schools, believes an underlying tension pervades Jena High School.

Of more than 100 teachers in the parish schools, only five are black, Mr. Riser said. That, and what he calls a sense that the school belongs to white residents, has left black students feeling alienated.

“People have not bought into their having to educate their kids at home, at school and in the community to respect each other,” he said. “White people here feel the way things have always been is the way they’ll always be.”

Mary Foster, The Associated Press

For the past then years, Victor Lander has served as Presiding Judge of City of Dallas Municipal Court Number 7. Judge Lander is also a prominent member of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas, TX, where he is part of their recently formed Coalition for Justice. Dr. Frederick Haynes III (Freddie to his friends) the pastor of this 9,000 member congregation, preached a spellbinding sermon at the Sojourners/Call to Renewal conference in early June.

I told Dr. Haynes, Judge Lander and other members of the Coalition for Justice about the Jena 6 story on an extraordinarily rainy night while I was en route to Jena. It is ironic that the Jena story was featured in the Dallas Morning News the very day the Judge Lander asks his readers why Dallas residents haven’t heard about Jena.

Alan Bean

(806)729-7889

https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com

Please consider supporting the work of Friends of Justice, and keep us organizing across Texas and Louisiana! You can donate securely on Paypal by following this link. Thanks to all those who have already given!

You can also sign up for Action Updates from Friends of Justice by clicking the link to the right of this post, and entering your email.

View from The Bench – Jim Crow is Alive and Well

By C. Victor Lander

“None of us are free until all of us are free.” That was one of the major concepts of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and of the civil rights movement. With that admonition in mind, the following is a story that most of you have never heard, but one that all of us must never forget. It is the story of a town just on the other side of the border (no, not that one, the Louisiana border), a little township called Jena, Louisiana, just 100 miles southeast of Shreveport and 30 miles northeast of Alexandria. In this little township, there is a group of young black men who have found themselves with the unfortunate moniker of being now known as the “Jena 6”. Now you know as well as I do that whenever you are known by a number and the name of a city, there is a problem (remember the “Chicago 7”?) So who are these young men, and why are they the Jena 6 (and more important, why haven’t you heard about them before today?)

Back in September, 2006, a group of black students attending Jena High School decided that they wanted to be considered equal (what a concept!) and they asked to be allowed to sit under a tree in the schoolyard that was previously considered to be “whites only”. The administrator said that they were free to sit anywhere they wanted, so they did, and the next day three nooses were hanging from the tree – two in the school’s colors. The principal of the school wanted the students who put up the nooses to be expelled, but the school board decided that they should only receive a few days of in-school suspension (what we used to call “detention”, or more accurately “study hall”). Soon after, a black student who walked into a white dance hall was attacked by a mob of white students, and later still a white Jena High School graduate with a pump shotgun pulled it out and threatened a group of black students at a local convenience store. The reaction of the town’s law enforcement – one man in the mob beating was charged with simple assault. Then on December 4, 2006, a group of black students got into a fight with a white student. The white student was knocked down, kicked and stomped. The reaction of the local District Attorney – the six black students (including the victims of the dance hall beating) where charged with attempted second degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, which could get them each up to 80 years in prison.

One student, Mychal Bell, who was 16 at the time he was charged, decided to go to trial, and two weeks ago he was convicted of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. The District Attorney argued to the all white jury that young Mr. Bell’s tennis shoes were a weapon. Mr. Bell will be sentenced on July 31. The remaining students, an 18 year old, three 17 year olds, and an unidentified minor, have yet to be tried. This story has been in the Chicago Defender, in the San Antonio Express-News, and even on CNN, but WE IN DALLAS KNOW NOTHING ABOUT IT.

Jim Crow is alive and well, and living next door. If you’re white you can pull a shotgun on someone and walk free. If you’re black and in a school fight you face 80 years in prison. Something is wrong in Jena. If you want to help, the Jena 6 Defense Committee is at P. O. Box 2798, Jena, LA 71342, and the Friends of Justice is at 507 N. Donley Avenue, Tulia, TX 79088. Oh, and next week, look for the story of Brian Steen, a very similar case from right here in Dallas, Texas. “None of us are free …”

C. Victor Lander Judge Lander can be reached at CVLander@AOL.com.

Friends of Justice first encountered Kathy Clay-Little in 2002, when Nancy
and Alan Bean, Freddie Brookins Sr. and Thelma Johnson traveled to San
Antonio for a police accountability conference. King Downing of the ACLU,
one of the grassroots organizers currently allied with Friends of Justice in
Jena, was the keynote speaker at the event. Kathy has been on my email list
ever since and occasionally mentions our activities in her column and on her
African-American Reflections radio program. She spent over an hour on the
phone with Nancy and our daughter Lydia in preparation for this excellent
column.

Alan Bean
Friends of Justice
(806) 995-3353
(806) 729-7889
https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/
_________________________________

http://www.mysanantonio.com/opinion/columnists/kclaylittle/stories/MYSA07020
7.02O.claylittle.2725477.html
Kathy Clay-Little <../storyindex.html>

New Jim Crow appears to be tougher than ever
Web Posted: 07/02/2007 12:00 AM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

Before July 1999, when they became involved in uncovering the Tulia scandal,
Nancy and Alan Bean believed as most white people do: The justice system
works as it is supposed to.
However, after seeing the justice system at work in Tulia and other parts of
the country through their Friends of Justice organization, they now believe
it is a broken system that perpetuates the new Jim Crow by getting rid of
people whom many don’t want included in America’s citizenship.
(more…)

Bill Quigley is one of the most prominent civil rights attorneys in New Orleans. He couldn’t be at Mychal Bell’s trial, but his assistant, Audrey Stewart was present. Bill and Audrey have done an excellent job of summarizing the primary issues. Please forward this readable account to your friends and allies. I particularly like the repeated references to “the white tree”. Nice touch–and completely accurate.

Please consider supporting the work of Friends of Justice, and keep us organizing across Texas and Louisiana! You can donate securely on Paypal by following this link. Thanks to all those who have already given!

Alan Bean
Friends of Justice
(806) 995-3353
(806) 729-7889
https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/
_______________________________________________________________________________________

http://www.countercurrents.org/quigley030707.htm
Injustice In Jena As Nooses
Hang From The “White Tree”

By Bill Quigley
03 July, 2007
Countercurrents.org
In a small still mostly segregated section of rural Louisiana, an all white jury heard a series of white witnesses called by a white prosecutor testify in a courtroom overseen by a white judge in a trial of a fight at the local high school where a white student who had been making racial taunts was hit by black students. The fight was the culmination of a series of racial incidents starting when whites responded to black students sitting under the “white tree” at their school by hanging three nooses from the tree. The white jury and white prosecutor and all white supporters of the white victim were all on one side of the courtroom. The black defendant, 17 year old Mychal Bell, and his supporters were on the other. The jury quickly convicted Mychal Bell of two felonies – aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. Bell, who was a 16 year old sophomore football star at the time he was arrested, faces up to 22 years in prison. Five other black youths
await similar trials on attempted second degree murder and conspiracy charges.
Yes, you read that correctly. The rest of the story, which is being reported across the world in papers in China, France and England, is just as chilling.

(more…)

On Thursday, June 28, 2007, At the LaSalle Parish Courthouse in Jena, Louisiana, Mychal Bell was convicted of aggravated second degree assault and conspiracy to commit secondary degree aggravated assault. Mykal was convicted because jurors believed he had knocked a white student named Justin Barker unconscious with a single devastating blow to the head.

Mychal Bell was accused of participating in a conspiracy because his alleged victim was stomped by several other students as he lay on the ground. It was explained that the young black males who stomped Justin Barker were co-conspirators with Bell even if they had never agreed to a coordinated attack. According to law, because Bell’s single blow made the stomping possible, an informal conspiracy, or “combination” could be implied.

The alleged assault was “aggravated” because a dangerous weapon was used-namely tennis shoes. According to this reasoning, every fight
participant is guilty of aggravated assault unless he shows up naked. The law is designed to make it as easy as possible to put defendants away for as long as possible.

The Mychal Bell trial has attracted interest from around the globe-accounts have been published in South Africa, Russia, China, Australia and every flagship newspaper in America-with the curious exception of the New York Times. Correspondents invariably note that Jena has been the subject of public scrutiny since the morning in late August, 2006 when three nooses were found hanging from a tree in the high school square. The fact that Mychal Bell was tried by an all-white jury has fanned accusations of racism.

A gifted athlete and solid student with a promising future, Mychal Bell may be forty before he returns to the free world. Judge J.P. Mauffray will hand down his sentence on July 31st. Much has been said about the severity of the charges filed against the Jena 6, Mychal Bell and the co-conspirators. District Attorney Reed Walters originally accused the Jena 6 of attempted murder-charges sentences up to 100 years without parole. A worldwide outcry forced the prosecutor to back off a bit. Judge Mauffray’s sentence will
tell us how he views the proportionality issue.

But more basic questions abound. Is Mychal Bell guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? Did he receive a fair trial? And did Blane Williams, Mr. Bell’s court appointed attorney, give the trial a moment’s thought before entering the courtroom?

I have grown accustomed to all-white juries convicting poor black defendants, but this trial was something new. When “ineffective assistance of counsel” is covered in law school classrooms, this case may become the standard illustration. Throughout the three-day trial you could hear jaws hitting the floor as Blane Williams stumbled through his ill-conceived defense of his client. Hardened journalists were left scratching their heads. This was supposed to be an important trial. Why then, was Mychal Bell’s attorney so ill-prepared?

It’s pretty simple, actually. Court appointed attorneys aren’t paid well enough in most jurisdictions to seriously research the cases they handle. Take a client to trial and you are almost sure to lose money. Some attorneys are willing to take the occasional financial hit in the interest of justice; others are not. Blane Williams wanted Mychal Bell to take a plea offer. Mychal refused. Williams had no choice but to take the case to trial-but he was determined to put no more work into this case than the law allowed. And the law, my friends, allows defense attorneys to do very little if they are so inclined. You get the kind of justice you can afford to pay for.

Reflections in the wake of the Mychal Bell trial

Partisan witnesses
* The ten student witnesses who testified at Mychal Bell’s trial were all white. In fact, most of them were part of a distinct minority within
the high school’s white student population who attended all-white schools in the country surrounding Jena until High School. (More on this below)
* Justin Cooper was the only witness at trial to testify that Mychal Bell kicked Justin Barker as the victim lay unconscious on the ground.
Since Justin Cooper was one of the boys who admitted to hanging the nooses at Jena High School at the beginning of the school year, he can hardly be seen as an objective or credible witness. Defense Attorney Blane Williams was apparently unaware of Cooper’s connection to the noose incident.
* Jessica Hooter was one of four trial witnesses who identified Mychal as the person who threw the first punch at Justin Barker. Two days after the assault occurred, Jessica was unable to identify the initial attacker. But as she explained at trial, “After I thought about it more, I remembered more.” In his closing remarks, Blane Williams never mentioned that she had embellished her earlier testimony. Perhaps he forgot.
* The single male juror graduated from High School with Justin Barker’s father. The tendency to sympathize with an old school buddy whosekid got punched and kicked in a one-sided assault is understandable. It also makes objectivity impossible.
* Midway through the trial, assault victim Justin Barker and his family were seen by ten witnesses (myself included) sharing a convivial meal with several of the students who had testified against Mychal Bell. This suggests that a number of “memory-enhancing” conversations about the incident have taken place between early December and late June. Jessica Hooter likely “remembered” that the unidentified attacker was Mykal Bell because this quickly became the orthodox story in the social circle she move in.

Ms. Martin’s list
* At trial, special education teacher Kristy Martin listed off the names of the boys who surrounded Justin Barker as if they were clear in her memory. Although she was forced to admit that she never saw a single student touch Justin Barker, Martin’s ability to name names seemed very convincing. Martin is the only witness thus far who has provided a list of attackers longer than three names.
* In a written statement, given immediately after the incident, Coach Wayne Spence states that he was taking names of rowdy students in the gym during the lunch hour. “I had a list that Ms. Martin obtained from me,” he wrote. This suggests that Kristy Martin specifically asked Spence for the list of names the day of the fight. This explains why she is the only witness to remember more than two or three members of the Jena 6. Most eye witnesses can’t identify a single assailant by name. Most of the students who gave eyewitness statements after the December 4 altercation at the school make references to “a bunch of black kids”.

The witness no one called
* Coach Benjy Lewis gave two statements immediately after the school incident in which he clearly states that Justin Barker was facing him when Malcolm Shaw (not Mychal Bell) struck Barker from behind. “I saw Malcolm Shaw hit Justin Barker with his right fist to the right side of Justin’s head, right around the temple,” Lewis wrote. “Justin went down face first, knocked out . . .” Most witnesses agree that a single punch knocked Barker out cold. The only adult who witnessed the punch says Mychal Bell didn’t throw it.
* In a signed statement given immediately after the altercation at the school, student Jesse Beard stated that moments after the assault Coach Manning asked him where Malcolm Shaw was.
* It isn’t hard to see why the prosecution didn’t call Lewis to the stand (his testimony would have devastated the state’s case); but how do we explain why defense attorney Blane Williams didn’t call the coach to testify?
* Several people (myself included) noticed Mychal Bell repeatedly handing his attorney pieces of eyewitness testimony during the trial. This suggests that Williams entered the courtroom utterly unprepared for trial.

The green jacket theory
* Two female students testified that the person who knocked Justin Barker cold was wearing a green jacket. Mychal Bell’s statement, given immediately after the incident, suggests that he was initially cleared of responsibility because he was wearing a black jacket. At trial, the “green jacket” witnesses were convinced that Mychal Bell was not the attacker-they knew Mychal and the guy in the green jacket was someone else.
* The “green jacket” identification means that we have at least three mutually contradictory eyewitness accounts of who struck Justin Barker: Mychal Bell, Malcolm Shaw, or an unidentified student in a green jacket.
* Both “green jacket” witnesses insist that Justin Barker was knocked cold, not by a punch to the temple, but by having his head slammed into a concrete bench. Coach Benjy Lewis says that Justin Barker was knocked cold from a punch from behind. Witnesses who name Mychal Bell as the attacker describe a face-to-face confrontation followed by a blow to the head that knocked Justin Barker out. Defense attorney Blane Williams never reflected on the evidence long enough to identify these obvious contradictions.

If Lewis is right; Bell is innocent
* The fact that Justin Barker cannot remember who hit him argues in favor of Coach Lewis’s blow-from-behind account. It must also be remembered that Lewis was the only adult who directly witnessed the assault. He was also the only non-partisan eye witness. If Lewis is telling the truth, the witnesses who identify Mychal Bell as the initial attacker are either confused or, like Jessica Hooter, they are victims of a false sense of concreteness produced by the continual retelling the story in the company of partisan friends.
* Most of the prisoners recently exonerated on the basis of unassailable DNA evidence were wrongfully convicted by confident
eyewitnesses. Memory doesn’t work like a photograph; recollections change dramatically with time. We often see what we want to see.
* All this contradictory evidence makes it impossible to identifyJustin Barker’s assailant with any confidence.
* All those identifying Mychal Bell were highly partisan observers clearly identified with one side of a longstanding and unresolved feud
between the “country” white students who hung the nooses in a tree at the high school and the black male athletes who were particularly outraged by this hate crime (see more on this below).
* On balance, the most persuasive testimony by far comes from Coach Lewis-and neither the prosecution nor the defense called Lewis to testify at Mychal Bell’s trial.

A chaotic scene
* In signed statements, several black and white eyewitnesses referred to students running to and from the scene of the assault. Justin Barker was clearly struck on the face and then intentionally kicked while he lay on the ground. However, it is impossible to determine which of Justin Barker’s bruises and abrasions were the result of intentional assault and which may have been the unintentional result of a panic-induced stampede. All witnesses agree that the scene was utterly chaotic with students moving wildly in every direction. Defense attorney Blane Williams never raised this obvious question.
* Several of the Jena 6 defendants freely admit that they were close to the altercation. This isn’t surprising when we realize that the shout of “fight” at a high school always brings students running to the scene.

“With a stroke of my pen”
* In early September, the three white students responsible for hanging nooses in a tree in the school courtyard were punished with a few days of in-school suspension. The noose incident was dismissed as a childish prank. The following day, black students staged a spontaneous protest rally under the tree where the nooses had been discovered. Several black male athletes took the lead in this protest-the same students who were eventually accused of attacking Justin Barker.
* The decision to treat the noose incident as a childish prank sparked a brief firestorm of media attention in which Jena school officials were frequently accused of racism.
* In early September, District Attorney Reed Walters addressed an emergency school assembly called in response to the spontaneous student protest. With a dozen fully uniformed police officers in the auditorium, Walters warned protest organizers that with a stroke of his pen he could take their lives away. Walters has admitted under oath that he made this remark. His words were not aimed at the entire student body, nor at black students in general-he was speaking to the student athletes we now call the Jena 6. After the demonstration under the tree, Robert Bailey, Carwin Jones, Mychal Bell, Theodore Shaw, Jesse Beard and Bryant Ray Purvis became
notorious.

A descending spiral of violence
* Evidence suggests that some teachers and school administrators were empowered by Mr. Walters’ “stroke of my pen” remark. Defendants report that in the wake of the school assembly, several teachers became increasingly strict and adversarial in relation to the boys responsible for associating Jena High School with Jim Crow racism. It appears that some students responded to this change in attitude by withholding respect and acting out in ways that encouraged an even more authoritarian teacher response. Discipline referrals for the Jena 6 skyrocketed during the fall semester.

* In the period between Mr. Walter’s “stroke of my pen” threat in September and the assault on Justin Barker in early December, a series of physical altercations played out between the Jena 6 and the circle of boys who supported the hanging of the nooses. The white students had attended all-white schools in the countryside prior to coming to the integrated high school campus. They felt reassured by the segregated school courtyard and were intimidated by the suggestion that black students could sit wherever they wanted. Hence the nooses.
* The laughably light discipline handed down for this “childish prank” was perceived, correctly, as a triumph for students wishing to preserve a segregated school square.

A fire, a fight, and a firearm
* In signed statements, several white and black students mentioned a series of verbal altercations during the lunch hour preceding the attack on Justin Barker. The trash-talking was directly related to a fight at the Fair Barn three days earlier. On that occasion, Robert Bailey and a few of his friends were invited to an all-white student party by some of their white friends. When Robert entered the building he was punched in the face by a 22 year-old white male. In seconds, Robert was assaulted with beer bottles, punches and kicks in a virtual mirror image of the altercation at the high school three days later. The only differences were that the identify of the instigator in the Fair Barn incident was undisputed and that Robert remained conscious after the initial blow and was thus able to minimize the impact of the attack.
* The following morning, Robert Bailey and two of the friends who had come to his aid during the Fair Barn assault were leaving a local
convenience store when they encountered one of the country white males who had jumped Robert the night before. Fearing retaliation, the boy retreated to his truck and pulled out a pump-action, pistol-grip shotgun that looks like something the Terminator might have fancied. When Robert and his friends wrestled the weapon away from their would-be assailant they were charged with assault and theft. Once again, Jena’s New Jim Crow regime was reinforced.
* It is not unusual for residents of rural LaSalle Parish to drive around with firearms in their trucks. On May 10, 2007, Justin Barker was
arrested for bringing a rifle to school in his vehicle. A thorough search probably would have turned up several more illegal firearms in the school parking lot.
* The violent assault at the Fair Barn, the convenience store incident, and the assault at the school followed in the wake of a traumatic
school fire in late Novermber. Everyone associated with the school was in a state of shock akin to post traumatic stress syndrome. Concerned by the wave of violence, several teachers asked administrators not to reopen the school the Monday morning of the assault.

Running his mouth
* Student statements suggest that the student who attacked Justin Barker was responding to taunts that Robert Bailey “had his butt kicked” at the Fair Barn. In the course of this verbal jousting, several students report that Justin Barker “got up in Mychal’s face” and gave Mychal the finger. Tony Knapp, one of three boys who admitted to hanging nooses earlier in the school year, was also involved in this lunch hour altercation. At trial, District Attorney Reed Walters created the misleading impression that Barker was attacked by black thugs looking for a random white victim. He knew better.
* Several eyewitnesses recall that the initial punch was preceded by the shouted words, “This will teach you to run your mother f***ing mouth.” This statement, repeated by too many witnesses to be seriously doubted, makes no sense apart from the trash talking described in student statements.

The sins of the fathers
* This background information demonstrates that the black male students who attacked Justin Barker were bound to a steadily escalating chain of violence and counter-violence.
* This spiral of action and reaction was initiated by the September decision of school administrators to treat the noose incident as a childish prank. When Reed Walters threatened the Jena 6 with life imprisonment if they didn’t relinquish their constitutional right to denounce injustice, the boys were left with no legitimate avenue of protest. In the end, immature white and black males were left to their own devices. The consequences were as predictable as they were tragic.
* The ultimate responsibility for the violence at Jena High School lies at the feet of public officials who refused to acknowledge a hate crime
for what it was. The sins of the fathers are now being visited upon the children.

***

Please consider supporting the work of Friends of Justice, and keep us organizing across Texas and Louisiana! You can donate securely on Paypal by following this link. Thanks to all those who have already given!

Sign up for Action Updates by clicking the link to the right of this post, and entering your email.  You’ll get an email when we post to the blog and when we have opportunities to take action!

Thanks to blueintheface at DailyKos for covering the work of Friends of Justice in Jena. Check out this Dkos story, and scroll down to the bottom–blueintheface has compiled a list of public officials to register your outrage about the Jena case.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/28/144445/384

Mykal Bell has just been found guilty of aggravated second degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second degree battery. This verdict became a foregone conclusion the moment defense attorney Blane Williams wrapped up his closing arguments. “Mr. Williams made a lot of comments,” DA Reed Walters told the all-white jury, “but none of them were directed at the evidence.” Unfortunately, Mr. Walters’ assessment was bang on target.

There was no indication that Blane Williams gave any meaningful thought to his closing. Mr. Walters has been honing his closing arguments for months now, and it showed. Williams has done nothing but angle for a plea bargain, and, tragically, that also showed.

Everything hinged on whether the three witnesses who identified Mykal Bell as the student who firsdt struck Justin Barker were more credible than the witnesses who saw it differently. When you have one group of witnesses saying Mykal was the hitman, a second group saying he wasn’t, and a third group saying they witnessed the altercation but can’t say for sure who threw the first punch, the case for reasonable doubt should be a no-brainer. You don’t have to argue that the “Mykal-done-it” witnesses are lying. You merely suggest that there is no empirical way to determine who threw the first punch. Since witnesses on both sides of the issue are equally credible, and since many eyewitnesses came away confused, no final verdict is possible. Sometimes you simply have to say, “I don’t know,” and walk away. In the legal system that should translate into a not guilty verdict.

Mr. Williams could have compared the conflicting testimony to the contradictory reports parents often receive from two feuding children. If there is no way of determining the truth, and if both children are equally credible (or lacking in credibility) practical agnosticism is the only sane policy. To take sides in such a situation would be sheer folly.

The jury in Jena would have understood that argument. Unfortunately, it was never made. Even worse, Mr. Williams defended his decision to call no defense witnesses by arguing (in casual conversation) that the white jury would have questioned the veracity of black school kids. This may have been true; but, hey, let’s give these folks a chance.

I do not blame the jurors for this gross miscarriage of justice. Mykal Bell was done in by a conspiracy perpetrated by an unholy Trinity of legal professionals: a judge, a district attorney, and a conveniently incompetent defense attorney. It was in the best professional interests of Mr. Mauffray, Mr. Walters and Mr. Williams to dispense with this case outside the courtroom. Mykal Bell spoiled their plans and has now paid dearly for his insolence.

Sentencing in this case will be postponed until July 31st. Meanwhile, the trial of Theo Shaw waits in the wings. Once again, we have a defendant represented by an incompetent, uncommitted court appointed attorney. Blane Williams didn’t help Mr. Shaw by his repeated insistence that the other defendants in this alleged conspiracy are all guilty as hell.

I end this diatribe (written in the heat of passion, I admit) with a word of challenge to the usual suspects in the criminal justice reform community. It is generally impossible to get attorneys from the ACLU, the NAACP, the Legal Defense Fund, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the various innocent projects to represent indigent black defendants at the pre-conviction stage. These cases are considered “low-impact” and therefore low priority. Reform groups with staff lawyers prefer civil rights suits filed on behalf of wrongfully convicted (and unambiguously exonerated) defendants. There are a number of arguments advanced for this policy; but what just happened in a Jena, Louisiana courtroom exposes the tragic limitations of an outmoded strategy. Poor defendants have nowhere to turn prior to trial. Groups like Friends of Justice can attract media (if we’re lucky), but finding pro bono legal representation is a much harder sell. The criminal justice reform community needs to re-think its commitment to post-conviction (and often post-exoneration) intervention.

I need to rush off to a post-fiasco meeting with the defendants and their families, so I will have to cut this short. I will try to write at least one more report before returning to Texas.

Alan Bean

Executive Director, Friends of Justice

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