'Jena 6' case raises questions of bias in U.S. justice

Not everyone believes the case of the Jena 6 is so cut and dried either. It is not about race, but about finding justice for an innocent victim, said Reed Walters, the local parish prosecutor, at a press conference Wednesday. "With all the emphasis on the defendant, the injury done to [the victim] and the serious threat to his existence has become a footnote."

In Jena, racial tensions ratcheted up a year ago after white students hung up nooses on a tree at school. Many blacks in town saw a connection between the nooses' appearance and the fact that several days earlier a black
student had asked the principal for permission to sit under that tree, where whites, they said, traditionally congregated. Black parents demanded the perpetrators be expelled. Instead, the white students were sent to
off-campus alternative school for nine days, served a two-week in-school suspension (isolated in a separate classroom), attended discipline court, and were evaluated before returning to school, according to a statement by Roy Breithaupt, LaSalle Parish school superintendent. [Editor's note: The original version failed to specify who in Jena drew the connection between the nooses' appearance and the student question about sitting under the tree, and misstated the disciplinary action taken against the white students who hung the nooses.]

Mr. Walters, the white prosecutor, says the students who hung the nooses could not be prosecuted because there was no law against it. But, he added, "The people that did it should be ashamed of what they unleashed on this town."

In December, the six black teens beat a white student unconscious, although the victim attended a school event that night. One of the teens, a juvenile at the time, was charged as an adult and convicted of battery, a lesser charge. A groundswell of protests on talk radio and the Internet led to the organizing of a protest in Jena to coincide with his sentencing. When an appeals court dismissed the verdict, saying the teen should not have been tried as an adult, the protesters decided to march anyway.

On Thursday morning, buses from St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere were lined up for miles on Highway 49 into Jena. The crowd chanted "Free the Jena 6" as the Rev. Al Sharpton arrived at the local courthouse with family members of the jailed teens. Campus activists at schools like Duke, Howard University, and the University of Georgia were planning events to show their support, and rock singer David Bowie pitched in with a $10,000 check for the defense. Musicians including Nick Cannon, Jagged Edge, and Hurricane Chris have banded together for an "empowerment concert" planned for Sept. 29 in Birmingham, Ala.

The case touched a nerve deep within the black community, says Leonard Steinhorn, professor of communication at American University in Washington, D.C. "There's a sense that parts of the judicial system still remain anchored in the bigoted attitudes of old and that a black person can't get fair or true justice."

And that runs so counter to American ideals that, even though minorities have made great strides since the civil rights era, it causes a reaction, he adds. "You can't get any more basic than equal justice under the law."

Changes, experts say, do come once a sense of unfairness has convinced enough Americans that change is needed.

"The problem in the criminal justice system is the problem generally with the law: You always have great leaps forward and tiny steps backward," says Nunn.

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