Pick Your Scenario

One day, a young woman wanted to sit under a tree. Normally, only the boys sat there, but she didn't think that was fair. After all, it's a free country. So she gathered some friends and went to sit under the tree. The next day, someone had spray-painted the sexist word "C**t" on the tree. The boys responsible for the spray-painting were briefly suspended from school.

Several months later, six different girls were hanging out at school when a boy walked by. He called them sluts and insulted one of the girls in a sexual fashion. One girl hit him in the back of the head, then the six beat and kicked him while he lay on the ground. He had to go to the ER for treatment of his injuries.

Were the women justified?

What if the tables were turned? What if the graffiti had said "D**k" in response to a boy sitting in the girls' spot? What if six boys had attacked a lone girl after she laughed at them and accused one of having a small manhood? Would those six boys be justified in attacking her? Most of us find this scenario more offensive than the first, but I think they're approximately equal.

Is six against one ever fair, no matter what the offending person said about your gender, your sexual orientation, your mother, or your race?

I'm sure you know where I'm going with this. The group called the "Jena 6" did exactly that, attack a lone victim 6:1 (some reports say 5:1) after the victim bragged that one of the attackers had been beaten up by a white man.

If the Wikipedia article is truthful (and I take Wikipedia with a grain of salt), then Jena High School and the town had some racial tension preceding the tree incident (involving three nooses), which got worse in the four months before the assault. The principal recommended expulsion for the noose hangers, but was overridden by the school board, who felt it was a "harmless prank." Perhaps expulsion would have been an appropriate punishment, but some people are calling for felony convictions for commitment of a hate crime for this incident. I'm not sure that this meets criteria for federal conviction, disgusting (and racially-motivated) though this action was.

The sentencing for the six attackers is what troubles most of us. Assault, yes; attempted murder is a bit of a stretch. Conspiracy to commit murder only holds true if they planned the attack, and it sounds spontaneous. Saying that kicking the victim with tennis shoes meets criteria for "assault with a deadly weapon" may be a bit of a stretch, although getting kicked in the head could certainly be deadly enough. The one attacker who has been tried and convicted was only 16 at the time of the crime, yet was tried as an adult. His conviction was overturned on this basis, but he has not been released.

I'm willing to buy possible racism in the prosecutory over-zealousness. It could also be an attitude of "I'm going to crack down on crime so I'll get re-elected", in which case ANY highly publicized violent crime would have been over-prosecuted. Who knows?

What bothers me are statements like this:

JoAnn Scales, who brought her three teenage children on a two-day bus journey from Los Angeles, California, to Jena, made the same point.

"The reason I brought my children is because it could have been one of them" involved in an incident like the one in Jena. (cnn.com)

Um, lady, this could only happen to your children if you teach them that violence is an appropriate response to someone calling you a bad name, and if you teach them that 6:1 (or 5:1) is a fair fight.

I realize Jesse Jackson is an extremist with an agenda, but I disagree with him that "Punishing the teens with probation would have been sufficient" (also cnn.com). These guys committed a violent crime, sent a kid to the hospital, and several of them have prior records. These guys deserve a few months in juvenile detention, if properly convicted.

Therefore, I'm not necessarily all about standing behind these guys. I know our justice system is screwed up, and I'm all for changing it to be more fair. I'm all about charging these guys appropriately, and sentencing them appropriately. If there's no evidence that one of the boys participated, then don't charge him. If they're too young for adult sentencing, then don't try them as adults.

But don't tell me that their crime was "okay" because the victim called them a bad name. "He's an asshole" is not an acceptable defense.