Wow, just freaking WOW!
Deep hatred/utter meanness much?. I mean, what else could have motivated such a sentence for a 14yr old?.
ONLY in the GOOD OLE USOFA. It's reading/hearing stories like these that make my friends and colleagues here in Switzerland nod their heads in agreement and understanding as to why we're raising our child here in Switzerland, not perfect, but HUMANE and FAIR!
Consider my letter sent Sharon, and thanks for all your informative articles.
Chandra
Thanks so much for your help Chandra. Hopefully more will do the same.
Chandra, it's always great to read your comments. I'm Solange from the IMRR message board. Unfortunately what you say is all too true. I live in Dallas, Tx. This kind of thing is so common yet many white people are still in denial about it. Last year there was a series of articles along a similar line. Two defendants, one black, one white, sentenced by the same judge. I might be off about a few of the details but the main points are valid.
The black guy was around 16. He, along with several others, robbed a guy at gunpoint of 2.00. Fortunately the victim was unhurt. The robber got a boot camp sentence and several years probation. A year later he tested positive for marijuana. His probation was revoked and he was sentenced to life in prison.
The white guy was in his early 20's. In a dispute with a prostitute at his home, he killed the boy. Shot him in the back as he was fleeing. He was sentenced to several years of probation. Over the years he violated his probation over and over again by testing positive for heroine/cocaine 5 or 6 times, associating with known felons, stealing his brother-in-law's car, and leaving the jurisdiction of his probation without permission. The outcome of HIS probation violations was that his probationary period was unofficially cancelled. He received a letter giving him permission to leave the area and also no longer have to report to a probation officer.
Is that unreal or what? When asked about the incredible disparities in his sentencing, the judge stated that he wasn't at liberty to discuss the cases because there was a chance that both guys might appear in his court again in the future. One good thing is that the publicity got people working on having the black man freed after over 16 years in prison. Yet there are still people who defend this kind of blatant racism.
The U.S. is closer to the Caribbean than Europe, but your life would have been very different living here. Good decision. I'm American born but if I'd been born somewhere else I certainly would have chosen Europe over the U.S. I might get attacked for saying so but it's true.
Barbara, thanks for the information. Unbelievable. I certainly hope there is some watchdog group keeping notes on all these judicial inequities and that they will publish it to the media, b/c right now the media isn't doing its job. Judges need to know they're under scrutiny.
Already the apologists are out, saying that we don't know the full case and that Shaquanda deserves some punishment. That's not the point. The punishment should match the offense, and in this case, the punishment is extreme. Expulsion or an alternative school should have been options considered FIRST. Even if she had been charged with a misdemeanor, she has already served over a year now. And this seems to be a case of retaliation since Shaquanda's mother was very vocal and soon after the girl started being written up for even small infractions like having her skirt an inch too short. That's just shit.
Same with the case you cited; life imprisonment for violating probation where there was no loss of life and yet the other guy (white) killed a child, had multiple offenses and got to walk. See, that mess makes my pressure go up.
Sharon.
Thanks so much for the info to send WRITTEN letters to concerning this young lady.
Of course, I can understand how and why she pushed that woman, without having to have been there.
Black people are pushed, and hounded, and dogged day in and day out in this shithole of a country, and it's no wonder that some of us snap.
White America thinks they have a monopoly on rage.
They don't even want to know.
I will get started on my letters to these people who need to be contacted, especially that idea of what is supposed to be a governor of Texas.
Peace.
I forgot to mention that I am posting this story at my blog as well.
Thanks Ann.
A 14-year-old black girl is entering her second year of a 7-year sentence for SHOVING A HALL MONITOR who sustained no injuries.
Sharon. The 58 year old hall monitor was injured and required medical attention. The girl was convicted of a violent assault. You might prefer to believe her and her mother, however several Black teachers and administrators testified against her .
She was not given a seven year sentence as is being claimed. How long she remains depends on how she acts while in the juvenile system. Without knowing the full story and reading a transcript of the court proceedings it is impossible for me to judge her actions precisely.
. Few cases are the same or even comparable in everyone's mind. This is why I am a believer in tight sentencing guidelines. Surely this young girl did not deserve a harsher sentence than the people who brutally beat 3 women in Long Beach.
Michael, as I just posted over at Rachel's, no one is saying that there shouldn't have been punishment, but that the punishment is obviously extreme in this case. Even where the sentence is "up to seven years" the possibility is there for her to serve those full years. And yet a white girl setting a house on fire gets probation. You haven't mentioned that.
As I said, for someone with a disciplinary problem, there are other ways to deal with the problem. In this case, expulsion or alternative schooling. In a follow up article the judge says he was going by what was "best for the child." How is it best for Shaquanda to be incarcerated with actual felons? And his emphasis in defending his sentence seems to be totally on the mother being uncooperative and he determined that Shaquanda would be better away from her mother. So foster care wasn't even considered in this case?
And obviously the state has determined that something needs to be reviewed in this case as well as several thousand others because they have made the determination that some of the sentences meted out in the Texas juvenile sentence may have been arbitrarily and unfairly extended. Shaquanda's case is one of the first to be reviewed.
Note the word "arbitrarily." That seems to fit in this case and in the other case cited by Barbara. Inequitable sentencing is just a prima facie sign of a systemically racist judicial system.
As for the Long Beach incident that so many keep bringing up, yes the attackers should receive a sentence that fits the brutality of the crime. But my understanding of the case is that the controversy centers on a field identification that was fallible at best. The kids were identified as suspects to the witness by the police in a line-up that did not include non-suspects (same as reported in the Duke case, remember?) If there was a dragnet where some innocent kids got pulled in among the guilty, then that would be a case of innocent kids going to jail for something they didn't do.
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