Category: “civil rights”

The Defense Rests

June 28, 2007June 29, 2007 · 1 Comment ·

I don’t enjoy criticizing defense attorneys. Most of them are underpaid and over-worked. Public defenders are asked to handle too many cases; the only way to keep your head above water (and to make any money) is to ask the prosecutor for a plea offer–which is usually forthcoming. But court appointed attorneys and public defenders must understand that, in cases involving a serious risk of wrongful conviction, you have to go to the wall for your client–even if that means losing money on the case.

Blane Williams didn’t get the ethics memo. From the beginning, he has worked for a plea offer–a trial was never in his plans. Yesterday, he entered the courtroom with little preparation. His client kept handing him eyewitness statements and whispering suggestions.

The Alexandria attorney will tell you this “avoid the courtroom at all costs” strategy is in the best interest of his client. Mykal Bell disagreed. The football phenomenon had seen the eyewitness testimony in the case. He knew that most witnesses either didn’t know who hit Justin Barker or identified another student as the assailant. Mykal knew that a football coach who claimed to have witnessed the assault insisted that Mykal was not the boy who threw the knockout punch. Other students identified a mysterious student in a green jacket as the instigator. One boy said the boy who struck Justin Barker wore a red shirt. Neither the green jacket people or the red shirt witness believe that Mykal Bell hit Justin Barker.

Most of the eyewitnesses attended all-white schools with Justin Barker during the elementary and Junior High years. They call Justin a close friend. Several of these students have clearly discussed the details of the December 4, 2006 incident among themselves. Unfortunately for the prosecution, there are at least two distinct circles of memory and they don’t mesh at all. One group says Mykal (or an unidentified student) punched Justin Barker in the face after which a gang of between ten and fifteen other black students started kicking and stomping the victim. The other group has the green jacket boy (clearly not Mykal) grabbing Justin Barker, smashing his head into a concrete pillar (there is no punch in this account) and throwing him to the ground. Will Blane Williams exploit this discrepancy?

Of the ten students who witnessed the attack (including Justin Barker), three say they saw Mykal hit Justin, two say the attacker wasn’t Mykal, and five couldn’t identify the student who threw the first punch. Only one witness out of the ten claims to have seen Mykal kicking Justin once he was on the ground.

Mykal Bell knew that several black students have testified to a prolonged trash-talking session in the high school gym just moments before the assault. Apparently, white students were crowing about a Friday night fight in which Robert Bailey (a member of the Jena 6) “got his butt kicked.” This meant that the assault at the school (whoever was involved) stands in a cause-and-effect chain leading back to the famous nooses hung in a tree in the Jena High School courtyard.

But if Blane Williams was aware of these facts and allegations he showed little evidence of it yesterday. He could have called the coach to the stand who named a student other than Mykal Bell as the hitter. He could have called the black students who referenced a trash-talking episode involving Justin Barker to the stand. Instead, he rested.

So, what happens today? Hopefully, Blane Williams will make some of the arguments referenced above. Unfortunately, his failure to call defense witnesses takes most of my arguments off the table. White jurors will sometimes acquit a black defendant, but only if the state’s case is thoroughly refuted in every detail. Reasonable doubt won’t cut it. White jurors will not put a potentially dangerous black man back on the street if the slightest shadow of suspicion remains. It’s a prudential, public safety calculation. “Best to err on the safe side and put the guy away,” jurors reason.

For this reason, I fully suspect that Mykal Bell will be convicted. I doubt the jury will buy the aggravated assault argument–only in the minds of legal professionals do a pair of tennis shoes constitute a dangerous weapon. But Mykal will likely be convicted of something.

There are only six jurors. In Louisiana this is called a “bob-tail jury”. To get a conviction all must agree. Only if one juror understands the concept of reasonable doubt, and has the backbone to stand alone against five incredulous colleagues, does Mykal stand a chance of acquittal. Intelligence and courage are rare commodities. Some people possess one but not the other; most possess neither. Prosecutors are skilled at weeding intelligent, courageous people out of a jury pool and I suspect Reed Walters made his cuts wisely. So things don’t look good. Check back later today for the details of the verdict.

Alan Bean

TWO WAYS TO GET INVOLVED:

1. Send a donation to Friends of Justice to support our organizing in Jena. Make checks to “Friends of Justice” and make a note that it’s for the “Jena initiative”. Our address is 507 N. Donley Ave, Tulia TX 79088.

2. Sign up for our Action Updates. Click the link on the right-hand side of our website, and respond to the confirmation email. We’ll contact you with further news and opportunities to take action.

Deadly tennis shoes and legal fatalism

June 27, 2007August 10, 2010 · 3 Comments ·

Friends:

I am writing from the LaSalle Parish library, across the street from the courthouse in Jena, Louisiana. I have fifteen minutes to describe the trial of Mykal Bell, so I will have to give you a quick snapshot. My apologies in advance for typos and general inelegance. Sixteen witnesses were called, most of them white school students. A few testified that they had seen Mykal Bell punch Justin Barker in the face. Others attributed the malicious act to an unidentified guy in a green jacket and hooded sweatshirt who definitely was not Mykal Bell. According to the “green jacket” witnesses, Justin Barker’s wasn’t punched at all–his head was smashed into a concrete barrier after which he fell lifeless to the ground. Many witnesses testified that they heard somebody hit Justin Barker, but they didn’t see the deed. Virtually all these witnesses testified that they did not see Mykal Bell kick or stomp the victim–in fact, most didn’t remember seeing the defendant at the scene at all. Two high school teachers also testified–neither saw Mykal punch, stomp or kick the victim.

On the basis of this tangled mess you would easily assume that an acquittal is all but certain. You would be wrong. In fact, District Attorney, Reed Walters, seems determined to press ahead with the charge of “assault with a dangerous weapon” even though not a single witness testified that Mykal possessed a weapon and a bare fist doesn’t fit the legal description. Walter’s theory appears to be that Mr. Bell’s tennis shoes constitute a dangerous weapon. Incredibly, in the state of Louisiana, he has legal precedent on his side. Unfortunately for Walters, only one witnesses testified that Mykal kicked the victim at all. The consensus was that Mykal wasn’t one of the kickers or the stompers.

Now, to a legal layperson like myself, the suggestion that ordinary tennis shoes constitute a dangerous weapon sounds like something out of a Monty Python sketch. You might even think I’m making all of this up. I assure you, I am not.

In fact, Mykal’s court appointed defense attorney appears convinced that nothing he can say or do can save his client from a conviction–at least on the “lesser included” charge of simple battery. Asked if he was ready to begin his defense (after the prosecution had rested), Blaine Williams told the judge that he wouldn’t be mounting a defense. This is madness. All white juries always convict black defendants (in my limited experience) unless the state’s case is meticulously demolished in every detail. You don’t win on points if you are a defense attorney and your client is as poor as Mykal Bell. The mere fact that the state failed utterly to prove a single element of its case will not save Mr. Bell.

Court appointed attorneys easily convince themselves that, because juries are inclined to convict defendants no matter how sketchy the evidence, the best course of action is always to negotiate a quick plea bargain. If the client forces them to trial (as in the case at hand) fatalistic defense attorneys like Blaine Williams simply go through the motions and pray for a light sentence. I know beyond a doubt that I could get up tomorrow and destroy the state’s case in its entirety–in fact, several lay people in the court room this afternoon could win an acquittal for Mykal Bell. But if the defendant is acquitted by the jury tomorrow it will be one of those anomalous cases in which juries depart from their usual pattern–Mr. Williams will certainly have nothing to do with it.

Mykal told several of us during a break in the action that his attorney didn’t consult him before he decided to take a dive in this case. Don’t get me wrong; there are thousands of selfless defense attorneys out there who will go to the wall for their clients even if it means losing money on a case. But there are far too many defense attorneys representing indigent defendants who justify their ineffectual behavior on the theory that nothing they could possibly do could benefit a poor, black client. Today I encountered the worst case of legal fatalism I have ever witnessed . . . and believe me, that’s saying something!

And Jena is only the beginning. We need to organize across Texas and Louisiana to shine a light on our system–consider making a donation to Friends of Justice today and help us fight the good fight!

Alan Bean

Executive Director, Friends of Justice

http:/friendsofjustice.wordpress.com

3415 Ainsworth Court Arlington, TX 76016
mobile: 806-729-7889 
office: 817-457-0025
bean_alan@yahoo.com

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Democracy Denied

June 26, 2007June 26, 2007 · 1 Comment ·

This is Lydia Bean, writing from Texas. I just heard from the defendant’s families in Jena–they tried to hold a protest on the courthouse steps this morning, but they were told that the court had gotten an injunction to prevent them from protesting. The Louisiana ACLU is looking into the legality of this claim. In the meantime, the word is that the jury is shaping up to be all white and all elderly–just the kind of jury that you can count on to sentence young black men to the maximum. Stay tuned.

Jena story heats up

June 26, 2007June 26, 2007 · 2 Comments ·

Friends:

Reed Walters has been praying that Mykal Bell would take a plea bargain and the clutch of stories appearing around the world demonstrate why. Monday’s dramatic hearing is being reported in Russia’s Pravda, in South Africa, France, and across the nation. Below, I have pasted Howard Witt’s initial follow-up to his groundbreaking article in the Chicago Tribune. An AP story has also been written (see Google link at the bottom of this post) and is popping up in longer and shorter versions across the country. In short, interest in this trial is remarkably high. CNN aired its Jena segment on Paula Zahn’s NOW Monday evening–the first nationally televised coverage to appear on this story in America. CBS News is also interested.

Mykal Bell is still facing serious charges. As Witt’s article notes, aggravated second degree murder requires the use of a weapon–and a fist doesn’t rate as a weapon in the state of Louisiana. Undoubtedly, DA Walters has a creative prosecutorial strategy in mind.

Mykal Bell isn’t the only person on trial this week: Reed Walters and the little town of Jena also stand before the bar of justice. Whatever the outcome of this trial, Mr. Walters and his supporters will not emerge unscathed–nor should they. The nooses hung in the school courtyard back in late August will receive hardly a mention in the courtroom (Judge Mauffray has already ruled the noose incident legally irrelevant); but the media conflagration is fanned by the bewildering disparity between Jena’s mild response to a hate crime and the community’s inexplicable over-reaction to a violent altercation at the high school in which no one was seriously injured. The only criminal charge that can be sustained in these cases is simple misdemeanor battery. If the forty-some eyewitness accounts of the incident at the school are an accurate indication, the testimony flowing from the witness chair this week will be riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies. Stay tuned, folks; we’re in for a rough ride.

Alan Bean

Friends of Justice

(806) 995-3353

(806) 729-7889

Hear an mp3 recording of “Sitting on the Wall”, a song I wrote about Jena, Louisiana.

https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/

__________

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-jena_wittjun26,1,3186370.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

TRIBUNE UPDATE

Charge reduced in ‘Jena 6’ case

Change made on day jury was to be picked

By Howard Witt
Tribune senior correspondent
Published June 26, 2007

HOUSTON—The district attorney prosecuting a racially charged beating case in the small Louisiana town of Jena abruptly reduced attempted-murder charges Monday against a black high school student accused of attacking a white student, drawing cautious praise from civil rights leaders who contend the charges were excessive and part of a pattern of uneven justice in the town.

Mychal Bell, 16, a former Jena High School football star, and five other black students had been facing the potential of up to 100 years in prison if convicted of attempted murder, conspiracy and other charges for the December beating of the white student, who was knocked unconscious but not hospitalized. The incident capped months of escalating racial tensions at the high school that began after several white youths hung nooses from a tree in the school courtyard in a taunt aimed at blacks.

But as jury selection was about to begin in Bell’s case Monday, District Atty. Reed Walters reduced the charges to aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery, which together carry a maximum of 22 years in prison. Walters, who is prosecuting Bell as an adult, also offered the teenager a plea agreement including a suspended sentence, which Bell’s father said the youth rejected.

Trials for the other five accused in the case have been delayed, and it was not clear whether Walters intended to reduce the charges against them as well. Walters did not speak to reporters in Jena or return calls seeking comment.

The case against the “Jena Six,” as the defendants have come to be called by their supporters, received national notice after it was featured in a May 20 Tribune report that detailed how racial animus had divided the mostly white central Louisiana town of 3,000 and erupted into repeated incidents of violence between blacks and whites.

“It certainly looks like the district attorney responded to the scrutiny the media has brought to this case,” said Alan Bean, a civil rights activist in Tulia, Texas, who, along with representatives of the ACLU and the NAACP, has been sharply critical of the charges against the black youths. “I don’t think he’s gone far enough in reducing the charges, but we’re certainly in a better place than we were.”

Bell’s father, Marcus Jones, said Monday that even though his son has been jailed since December and unable to post $90,000 bail, he preferred to take his case to a jury rather than plead guilty to a felony.

“The DA is trying to use my son as a scapegoat for these ridiculous charges,” Jones said. “He knows there’s no proof showing that my son and those other kids were trying to kill that boy. It was a simple high school fight. How can you turn that into attempted murder?”

Darrell Hickman, an attorney for one of the other youths charged in the case, said he expected the charges against the other defendants would eventually be reduced as well. And he asserted that even the reduced charges would be hard to prove.

“I think the district attorney is still overreaching,” Hickman said. “The new charge is aggravated second-degree battery, which requires use of a weapon. There’s no evidence that any weapon was involved.”

hwitt@tribune.com

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How to Create an Insurgency (in America or Iraq)

June 17, 2007August 10, 2010 ·

In the last few weeks I have spent a lot of time on airplanes and sitting around in airports. During these interminable hours, Thomas E. Ricks’ Fiasco has been my constant companion. As a devoted military man, Ricks is far more sanguine about the U.S. military than I am, but his basic thesis is sound: America fought the war it knew how to fight (blowing away a hapless enemy with overwhelming firepower and the weapons of intimidation)-not the war for hearts and minds the situation required. Faced with a rapidly evolving insurgency and mounting casualties, the American army panicked. In its pell-mell pursuit of “actionable intelligence” American soldiers burst into private dwellings, sticking their automatic weapons into the faces of Iraqi men, women and children, and hauling off entire neighborhoods of young men to detention facilities like the notorious (and soon grossly overcrowded) Abu Graib.

“In the spring and summer of 2003,” Ricks writes, “few U.S. soldiers seemed to understand the centrality of Iraqi pride, and the humiliation Iraqi men felt to be occupied by this Western army. Foot patrols in Baghdad were greeted during this time with solemn waves from old men and cheers from children, but with baleful stares from many young Iraqi men.” (Fiasco, p.192)

In the course of two long chapters Ricks calls “How to Create an Insurgency,” he discusses directives from senior command calling for “the gloves to come off” so that the insurgency could be “broken”. One young commander with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment responded with enthusiasm.

“I firmly agree that the gloves need to come off.” With clinical precision, he recommended permitting “open-handed facial slaps from a distance of no more than about two feet and back-handed blows to the midsection from a distance of about 18 inches . . . I also believe that this should be a minimum baseline.” He also reported that “fear of dogs and snakes appear to work nicely.”

America is confronted with poor, drug infested neighborhoods marked by high crime rates and a growing disrespect for the rule of law. We have responded with policies predicated on threats and intimidation. Doors are kicked in. Scores of officers flashing firearms sweep into an apartment. Babies scream for their mothers and elderly women are brusquely pushed aside. The f-word abounds. The young men are thrown to the floor and handcuffed while the apartment is ransacked. Maybe the police find illegal drugs; maybe they don’t. Maybe they got the right apartment; frequently they don’t. But it doesn’t matter. “The only language the bad guys understand is fear,” police officers tell one another.

The residents of poor neighborhoods tell me they are tired of being humiliated and disrespected by law enforcement and the criminal justice system. They are tired of being called “mother f&%*#@s”. They are tired of the sneers and the dismissive glances. They are tired of being suspects.

Like American soldiers in Iraq, police officers working poor neighborhoods have a hard time distinguishing the “good guys” from the “bad guys”. In both cases, the solution is the same: treat everyone like bad guys. If a few innocent people wind up doing long stretches in prison, that’s just the price we have to pay. No one in a poor neighborhood is ever innocent. Not really. They are suspect because they are poor. If residents are poor and black, the suspicion deepens.

But Thomas Ricks notes that not all military officers embraced the policy of intimidation and humiliation. An officer with the 501st Military Intelligence Battalion responded quite differently to the new call for neighborhood sweeps and brutal interrogation.

“It comes down to standards of right and wrong-something we cannot just put aside when we find it inconvenient, any more than we can declare that we will ‘take no prisoners’ and therefore shoot those who surrender to us simply because we find prisoners inconvenient.” This officer also took issue with the reference to rising U.S. casualties. “We have taken casualties in every war we have ever fought-that is part of the very nature of war . . . That in no way justifies letting go of our standards . . . The BOTTOM LINE,” he wrote emphatically in conclusion, was, “We are American soldiers, heirs of a long tradition of staying on the high ground. We need to stay there.” (more…)

With a Stroke of my Pen

June 17, 2007April 15, 2008 · 41 Comments ·

This month, I wrote a song about the crisis in Jena, Louisiana. The first verse sets up a critical moment: when the District Attorney came to the high school to speak to the students after three nooses were hung in the courtyard:

Down in Jena, Louisiana,
There’s a tree in the square
There’s a fire at the schoolhouse,
There’s a noose in the air.
Down in Jena, Louisiana,
In the land of the free,
There’s a man at the courthouse
And he’s talking to me:
“Sunday morning, I’m a church mouse,
But Monday morning at the courthouse,
With a stroke of my pen,
I’ll make your whole world end,
And all the king’s horses,
And all the king’s men,
Won’t put your world
Back together again.

Why would a district attorney conclude that a flash of school violence in which no one was seriously injured translates into fifty years in prison without parole? Wednesday’s recusal hearing at the LaSalle Parish Courthouse provided some answers.

Attorneys for two of the Jena defendants are contending that DA Reed Walters should recuse himself because he is personally invested in these cases. Exhibit 1 was the nasty statement Walters published in the Jena Times days after the Jena 6 were arrested. “I will not tolerate this type of behavior,” Walters wrote. “To those who act in this manner, I tell you that you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and with the harshest crimes that the facts justify. When you are convicted, I will seek the maximum penalty allowed by law. I will see to it that you never again menace the students at any school in this parish.”

These angry words take on a new significance when they are linked to comments Walters made at the Jena High School auditorium a few days after three nooses swung from a tree in the school courtyard. A black freshman, you will recall, had asked if black students could sit under an oak tree on the traditionally white side of the school courtyard. The remarkably light punishment was justified by the perception that the boys had committed an innocent prank free of racial overtones. The day after the punishment was announced, several black students “occupied” the space under the now infamous tree.

And who do you suppose took the lead in this spontaneous act of protest? You got it—the young black athletes now known as the Jena 6.

School authorities were terrified. Every police officer in LaSalle Parish was summoned to the school. Several dozen black students were standing under the tree surrounded by a ring of white students. A dozen police officers looked on helplessly until a school bell summoned the students to class.

To the white authority figures in Jena, Louisiana, the impromptu demonstration led by the Jena 6 had the feel of anarchy. The principal called the entire student body to the school auditorium for an unscheduled assembly. A sheriff’s deputy called Reed Walters and told him to get over to the High School immediately.

Reed Walters took the stand on two occasions during the June 13^th recusal hearing. Asked to describe his emotional state the day of the school protest, Walters said he was frustrated and angry. “I had just been handed an aggravated rape case,” the DA explained; he was trying to decide whether to press for the death penalty. “I was really wrapped up in that,” he said.

In comparison to his important rape case, the disturbance at the high school was much ado about nothing. “I told the students I was tired of what was going on,” Walters testified. “I was tired of the problem they were having. I felt that this was something they needed to handle themselves.”

Here we reach the crux of the matter. If the student protest was a justifiable response to a bizarre and unjust disciplinary decision, Mr. Walters’ reaction is incomprehensible. But if the noose incident really was a childish prank, it follows logically that the Jena 6 and those who followed their lead were exploiting the situation as an excuse for making trouble. They weren’t really concerned about racism or equality, the argument goes—they were just a bunch of thugs who needed to be straightened out.

Everything Reed Walters said the day of the protest under the tree reflects precisely this attitude. “I would like to be your best friend,” he told the students; but I can be your worst enemy.”

Then, with a dramatic flourish, Walters brandished his pen like the sword of Damocles. “With a stroke of this pen,” he told the students, “I can take your life away!”

Everyone testifying at the June 13^th hearing, Walters included, agreed that this statement was made—but who was the intended audience?

White students? Not at all—they were happy as clams with the situation and were in no mood to protest. Walters was talking to black students, in general—and to the Jena 6, in particular. He was telling them that if they continued to cause trouble, he would destroy them. His remarks in the Jena Times days after the Jena 6 were arrested in early December show that he was making good on a threat he had issued back in September.

Reed Walters suggested that the white and black students needed to work things out for themselves. They did. None of the tragic events that have placed Jena, Louisiana on the map would have taken place had Reed Walters kept his pen in his pocket and delivered a different speech. He could have called the nooses a hate crime. He could have denounced that crime and called for every authority figure in LaSalle Parish to follow his lead.

But, as a practical matter, Reed Walters had no choice but to wave his pen and issue threats. If the nooses constituted a hate crime he would have been forced to file charges against white students—a one-way ticket to political disaster. The white community had already decided to treat the noose incident as a harmless stunt and the DA had no choice but to follow their lead.

The assault at the school in December was a direct consequence of the DA’s bizarre speech in September. Reed Walters sowed the wind; Justin Barker and Robert Bailey reaped the whirlwind. Mr. Walters is prosecuting a crime produced and directed by Reed Walters.

Americans are tired of listening to the laments of poor people. There are no crimes of desperation, we say, just crimes of opportunity. America is a level playing field, so quit making excuses. And then we find three nooses dangling from an oak tree in Jena, Louisiana, or Camden Jew Jersey, or Tulia Texas . . . and we reach for our pens.

CNN runs piece on Jena on Monday, June 11

June 11, 2007 ·

I just heard from CNN that their piece on Jena has been rescheduled for Monday, June 11th at 8:00 Eastern. It’ll be on the show NOW with Paula Zahn.

Equal Justice Under Law?

June 7, 2007June 8, 2007 ·

Alan, Nancy and Lydia Bean were in Washington, DC this week. We were representing Friends of Justice at a social justice conference sponsored by Sojourners magazine and its sister organization, Call to Renewal. This was my third trip to the capital with our organization. My first was in the early summer of 2002 when I attended a civil rights conference with Freddie Brookins Sr. Freddie’s son had been swept up in the Tulia drug sting. A sleazy cop named Tom Coleman testified that young Freddie Brookins Jr. had sold him an 8-ball of powdered cocaine. Freddie Jr. said it never happened. Freddie Sr. believed his son. The jury believed Coleman. Freddie Jr. went down for twenty years.

While in Washington, Freddie Brookins Sr. and I were strolling around the National Mall in our cowboy boots and Friends of Justice t-shirts. When the Supreme Court building loomed above us, Freddie asked me to take a picture of him with the impressive edifice as a backdrop. As I framed the picture on Freddie’s camera I noticed the famous inscription on the Court’s façade and repeated it out loud: “Equal Justice Under Law”.

“Yeah, right!” Freddie responded with a grunt of disgust. An explanation wasn’t necessary.

A year later, I was back in DC at the behest of the Black Congressional Caucus. Maxine Waters wanted a couple of Tom Coleman’s victims to appear on a panel alongside some of the attorneys who had represented them. Dennis Allen and Freddie Brookins Jr. had only been in the free world for a week or two when I took them to DC. When the security people at the Amarillo airport asked for identification, Dennis and Freddie flashed their inmate cards from the Texas prison system. The guards didn’t look reassured—but we got on the plane anyway. While in town we visited the Supreme Court building and I remembered the elder Brookins’ response to the “equal justice under law” motto. I wondered if Freddie had changed his mind now that his son had been exonerated by the same system that convicted him.

The Beans were in Washington this week to talk about Tulia and some of our recent adventures in Louisiana. The highlight of the week was a candidate’s forum in which the three Democratic presidential frontrunners, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards answered questions about faith and poverty. The event was sponsored by Sojourners and carried live on CNN. When Soledad O’Brian finished interviewing Wallis and the Democratic hopefuls, she turned things over to Paula Zahn.

Earlier in the day I had spoken with a producer for Paula Zahn’s NOW program. She was in Jena, Louisiana interviewing some of the boys facing life sentences for their alleged part in a school fight. She had also spoken to the family of the boy on the receiving end of the school violence and had conducted a series of random person on the street interviews (the piece airs tonight, June 7, at 8:00 Eastern, 7:00 Central). She told me that most white folks in Jena believe the media has “blown things way out of proportion.” But when people are asked if they think virtual life sentences are an appropriate penalty for involvement in a school fight, “They have nothing to say—they don’t seem to be able to interact with the question.”

This morning I got a call from a white woman who grew up in Jena, Louisiana. “Thank you so much for standing up for those six black boys,” she told me. “But don’t think that blacks are the only victims in LaSalle Parish—they do us poor whites the same way.”

That’s why Friends of Justice talks about “The New Jim Crow”. We have all heard about the wealth gap. Thousands of articles have been written about how the upper 5% of the population has been making out like bandits. Less attention is being directed to the bottom 5^th percentile—the folks grossly overrepresented in the prison population. I read this morning that poor Paris Hilton has been shifted to home arrest after five harrowing days in prison. The night before I watched two back-to-back reruns of “The Closer” in which, as always, rich white guys from the upper 5^th percentile were sent to the slammer for greed-based murders most foul. In reality, however, prison is reserved for the surplus population—particularly poor people of color. These facts aren’t open to serious dispute.

What is in dispute is how best to respond to our burgeoning wealth gap and its alarming consequences. To date, we have decided to use the dynamics of the New Jim Crow to warehouse the “dangerous classes” in prison. To facilitate this dismal experiment in social engineering we have made it as easy as possible for people like District Attorney Reed Walters to incarcerate young men like Robert Bailey in Jena or for prosecutors like Terry McEachern to lock up folks like Freddie Brookins, or for Assistant US Attorneys like the egregious Brett Grayson to lock up Ann Colomb and three of her children. We then make it as difficult for poor people to survive on the streets once they are released from prison. This insures that, in most cases, their stay in the free world will be nasty, brutish and short.

You may believe that this is a fine recipe for public safety, a prudential response to the glories of globalization and our steadily growing wealth gap. But if we want to make the New Jim Crow a permanent feature of American life we need to hire somebody with a sandblaster to remove the words, “Equal Justice Under Law” from the façade of the Supreme Court.

This will require the drafting of a new motto—we can’t just leave the space blank. How about, “The Best Justice Money Can Buy!” A bit tacky? Perhaps. If you have a better idea, I welcome your suggestions.