Good News For Mychal Bell (For Now)...and the Tale of the Stubborn Attorney

JENA 6 TEEN RELEASED ON $45,000 BAIL

By DOUG SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer

A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate prompted a massive civil rights protest here walked out of a courthouse Thursday after a judge ordered him freed.

Mychal Bell's release on $45,000 bail came hours after a prosecutor confirmed he would no longer seek an adult trial for the 17-year-old. Bell, one of the teenagers known as the Jena Six, still faces trial as a juvenile in the December beating in this small central Louisiana town.

"We still have mountains to climb, but at least this is closer to an even playing field," said the Rev. Al Sharpton, who helped organize last week's protest.

"He goes home because a lot of people left their home and stood up for him," Sharpton said as Bell stood smiling next to him.

"There's only one person who could have brought me through this and that's the good Lord," Bell told reporters later in front of his father's house.

District Attorney Reed Walters' decision to abandon adult charges means that Bell, who had faced a maximum of 15 years in prison on his aggravated second-degree battery conviction last month, instead could be held only until he turns 21 if he is found guilty in juvenile court.

The conviction in adult court was thrown out this month by the state 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal, which said Bell should not have been tried as an adult on that particular charge.

Walters had said he would appeal that decision. On Thursday, he said he still believes there was legal merit to trying Bell as an adult but decided it was in the best interest of the victim, Justin Barker, and his family to let the juvenile court handle the case.

"They are on board with what I decided," Walters said at a news conference.

Bell faces juvenile court charges of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit that crime.

He is among six black Jena High School students arrested in December after a beating that left Barker unconscious and bloody, though the victim was able to attend a school function later that day. Four of the defendants were 17 at the time, which made them adults under Louisiana law.

Those four and Bell, who was 16, all were initially charged with attempted murder. Walters has said he sought to have Bell tried as an adult because he already had a criminal record, and because he believed Bell instigated the attack.

The charges have been dropped to aggravated second-degree battery in four of the cases. One defendant has yet to be arraigned. The sixth defendant's case is sealed in juvenile court.

Bell's lawyer, Carol Powell Lexing, said his next hearing is set for Tuesday.

Critics accuse Walters, who is white, of prosecuting blacks more harshly than whites. They note that he filed no charges against three white teens suspended from the high school over allegations they hung nooses in a tree on campus not long before fights between blacks and whites, including the attack on Barker.

An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 protesters marched in Jena last week in a scene that evoked the early years of the civil rights movement.

Walters said the demonstration had no influence on his decision not to press the adult charges, and ended his news conference by saying that only God kept the protest peaceful.

"The only way — let me stress that — the only way that I believe that me or this community has been able to endure the trauma that has been thrust upon us is through the prayers of the Christian people who have sent them up in this community," Walters said.

"I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened. You can quote me on that."

The Rev. Donald Sibley, a black Jena pastor, called it a "shame" that Walters credited divine intervention for the protesters acting responsibly.

"What I'm saying is, the Lord Jesus Christ put his influence on those people, and they responded accordingly," Walters responded.

After the news conference, Sibley told CNN that Walters had insulted the protesters by making a false separation between "his Christ and our Christ."

"For him to use it in the sense that because his Christ, his Jesus, because he prayed, because of his police, that everything was peaceful and was decent and in order — that's not the truth," Sibley said.

Walters has said repeatedly that Barker's suffering has been lost in the furor over the case, and that what happened to the teen was much more severe than a schoolyard fight.

Walters also has defended his decision not to seek charges in the hanging of the nooses, which he said was "abhorrent and stupid" but not a crime.

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What Does the Village Say?

Mos Def Expresses Outrage at Lack of Support for the “Jena 6”


Mos Def, who is currently in Jena, Louisiana for the rally in support of the “Jena 6,” is not happy with the response the Hip-Hop community has shown over the incident. Speaking to MTV News from Jena, Mos criticized his fellow artists, whom he noted seem to have no problem showing up at parties and award shows, for not traveling to Jena for the rally. “Shame on everybody who’s not here,” the rapper told MTV News. “I’m fuckin’ mad. I’m disappointed to always be coming to these things and it’s only one or two people [from the industry here]. If you ain’t gonna use your voice, then be quiet. I’m disappointed and ashamed.” Mos recently called upon his peers and any “influential African-Americans” to join him at the rally. Also in Jena this week is Port Arthur, TX native and UGK group member Bun B, who jumped in his car and drove over when he heard about the demonstration. “I grew up right next to a town where it’s strictly white people,” Bun explained. “I’ve been privy to these small incidents of violence in these all-white towns. We were blessed to find out about the Jena Six and were blessed to try to make some type of impact in this community before things went too far.”

I reserve my thoughts on this article for the moment...what are yours?

Article reference: XXL Magazine

Penning Pain

My home is still Jim Crow's plantation. Louisiana still has an old guard who influence the young through racist rhetoric and fear factor thought. Every hateful and misguided view that a mind can imagine is being tossed around the family in far too many households in my home state. Leave aside the Beverly Hillbillies imagery; some of the worst hatemongers in Louisiana wear designer clothing, live in twenty-room mansions, and manipulate government action from the garden patios of spacious bayou-wrapped yards. The scenery has changed over the years, but the hate and the wrong still remain. Six children are living a lesson in the hypocrisy of the technical age: intellectual and technological advancements abound, but racial hate and discrimination are alive and well.

I am crying inside.

I am praying for my people.

I am Black and proud.

I am scared for the children--those six young souls.

I am exorcising the demons of a lifelong battle with hate that started in kindergarten.

Praying for justice and holding a scream of anger inside my lungs, I am TIRED of the injustice. I want that Lady Justice to take her thumb off those scales and to leave that blindfold in place. Free the Jena 6. Let real justice prevail.

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Happily Kind of BLU...

I'm thinking about my grandmother now sitting in Heaven and hoping that I sit beside her one day, and I want to listen to some musical poetry. This young fellow Blu is an MC who calls the pretty/ugly city of Los Angeles his home and inspiration. Waxing philosophically about the city's contrasts and flexing lyrical muscle over the beat's pulse and flow (beat by LA producer Exile), he says some imaginative things. Here--let's listen together--then tell me what you think.

One of My New Favorites

The Sojourner puts it DOWN! I just checked out a poem on his page that woke me from writer's slump! Check it out!

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Now playing: IndieFeed.com community - Decay - Soul Blast
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Now playing: IndieFeed.com community - Decay - Soul Blast
via FoxyTunes