A Shocking Hate Crime in Mississippi

Posted: August 8, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Civil Rights, Crime, racism | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 19 Comments

Medgar Evers

Mississippi has a dark history of racism. It was in the state’s capital Jackson that Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in 1963.

On the morning of June 12, 1963, around 12:20 a.m., Medgar Evers arrived home from a long meeting at the New Jerusalem Baptist Church located at 2464 Kelley Street. He got out of his car, arms filled with “Jim Crow Must Go” T-shirts, and walked toward the kitchen door when a shot was fired from a high-powered rifle, striking Evers in the back. Myrlie heard the shot, ran outside with the children behind her, and saw Medgar lying face down in the carport. Next-door-neighbor Houston Wells heard the shot and called the police. The police arrived only minutes later and provided an escort as Wells drove Evers to the emergency room of the University of Mississippi Medical Center on North State Street. Evers died shortly after 1:00 a.m. of loss of blood and internal injuries.

A white man was arrested and charged with the murder of Evers.

On June 22, 1963, Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens’ Council, was arrested and charged with the slaying of Medgar Evers. Beckwith was tried twice for Evers’s murder, first in February and later in April 1964. Both trials (before all-white male jurors) ended in hung juries. Beckwith was not retried for the Evers murder until 30 years later. In a two-week trial, held in February 1994 before a jury of eight blacks and four whites, Beckwith was found guilty of the murder of Evers, for which he received a life sentence. Beckwith served only seven years of his life sentence at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County before dying of a heart attack January 21, 2001.

Nearly half a century later, Jackson, Mississippi is once again the site of a vicious, racially-motivated murder. This time, the crime was caught on video.

James Craig Anderson

On a recent Sunday morning just before dawn, two carloads of white teenagers drove to Jackson, Mississippi, on what the county district attorney says was a mission of hate: to find and hurt a black person.

In a parking lot on the western side of town they found their victim.

James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old auto plant worker, was standing in a parking lot, near his car. The teens allegedly beat Anderson repeatedly, yelled racial epithets, including “White Power!” according to witnesses.

Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith says a group of the teens then climbed into their large Ford F250 green pickup truck, floored the gas, and drove the truck right over Anderson, killing him instantly.

You can watch the video at the CNN link if you are so inclined. The video was taken from some distance away.

Deryl Dedmon, Jr.

The young man who proposed to his friends that they attack a black person–any black person–and who drove his truck over Anderson’s already battered body is Deryl Dedmon, Jr., age 18. Dedmon had been robbed a few weeks previously, and wanted some kind of twisted “revenge,” according to the New York Daily News.

According to the CNN article linked above,

Shortly after he allegedly drove the truck over Anderson, Dedmon allegedly boasted and laughed about the killing, according to testimony given by some of the teens to detectives.

“I ran that nigger over,” Dedmon allegedly said in a phone conversation to the teens in the other car.

He repeated the racial language in subsequent conversations, according to the law enforcement officials.

“He was not remorseful he was laughing, laughing about the killing,” said district attorney Smith.

Dedmon and the driver of the SUV, John Aaron Rice, have been arrested. Dedmon has been charged with murder, but a judge reduced the charges against Rice to aggravated assault. None of the other teenagers who were involved have not been charged with anything. Reportedly the two people in the car with Dedmon were girls. Rice had driven off with the others before the murder.

WJTV in Jackson talked to a former classmate of Dedmon’s, Branden Richardson, who said he was bullied by Dedmon and isn’t surprised to learn of the terrible crime.

“Didn’t surprise me at all, whatsoever, none at all,” says Richardson.

Richardson went to James Anderson’s funeral. Not because he knew Anderson, but because he knew that it could have been his own funeral.

“I very much felt that it could have been, a different day, it could have been me in that casket,” Richardson tells us. “I believe that just because Deryl didn’t like me.”

What I want to know is, why aren’t the other participants in this hate crime being prosecuted? They apparently chose to go along after Dedmon proposed hurting a black person. Isn’t participation in a felony in which someone is killed usually prosecuted as murder? Why isn’t the death penalty on the table? After all, this is Mississippi, where the death penalty is often invoked. Will justice be served in this case?

We’ll have to keep on eye on this one.

Late Night: What is the “Legal Issue” that Shut Down Saturday Testimony in the Casey Anthony Trial?

Posted: June 26, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: children, Crime, just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 23 Comments

From the Orlando Sentinel:

Chief Judge Belvin Perry and the attorneys met outside the courtroom and discussed matters that are “under seal” and not part of the public record, according to a court-system spokeswoman.

Perry emerged from the conference and announced aloud in court that a “legal matter” had come up, requiring court to be recessed.

His announcement came about 9:40 a.m. on a day he had expected to hear testimony until about 3:30 p.m. Instead, Perry announced that Anthony’s trial in the 2008 death of her daughter, Caylee, will resume Monday morning.

In the absence of an explanation, speculation soared that a plea deal might be in the making or that another call for mistrial had emerged or that there might be legal issues involving testimony by Lee and Cindy Anthony — the defendant’s brother and mother.

Those are the possibilities that first occurred to me too. But I really don’t think Casey would take a plea, and the prosecution has said they wouldn’t accept one after the trial began. Since it was Cheney Mason who asked to discuss something, I also wondered if the defense wanted to claim that Lee Anthony had perjured himself, but that would normally wait till the end of the trial wouldn’t it? If it were a mistrial, wouldn’t Jose Baez have just brought it up in open court?

Of course I have no idea what the “legal issue” is, but I thought I’d share some speculations I’ve seen from “experts” and court followers around the ‘net.

Vinnie Politan of True TV and HLN tweeted yesterday that he received confirmation from Cheney Mason that it definitely isn’t a plea deal.

@VinniePolitan
NO PLEA DEAL… My pal Jean Casarez spoke with Cheney Mason to confirm! RT to end the speculation!

Hal Boedeker, the TV Guy at the Orlando Sentinel has more detail from Jean Casarez:

Here’s what Casarez reported last night: “Cheney Mason, attorney for Casey Anthony, confirms with me that ALL of the media speculation surrounding Judge Belvin Perry’s dismissal of court this morning is false. This speculation would include plea deal, mistrial, Roy Kronk’s telephone records and issues with Dr. Bill Rodriguez testifying for the defense.

Boedeker also reported that Geraldo {gag} Rivera, who is friends with defense attorney Jose Baez,

…called the delay shocking. But he also cited ”an unimpeachable source” who said the legal issue “is expected to have no long-term impact on the trial, and further, it is still possible this contentious case could be wrapped up before July 4.” And Rivera added that the trial is “expected to resume Monday as if nothing happened, legally speaking. There is no harm, no foul.”

No foul except for Baez maybe leaking sealed info to his pal Geraldo….

The Christian Science Monitor brought up a possibility I hadn’t thought of. They cited an issue relating to testimony on Friday by lead detective Yuri Melich:

During testimony on Friday, Detective Melich revealed that investigators had obtained the cell phone records of Roy Kronk, the man who called police after discovering a small child’s skeletal remains in a wooded area not far from the Anthony’s home.

Melich said police obtained Mr. Kronk’s phone records from June to December 2008….That six-month date range is important for two reasons. It suggests that, at least initially, investigators suspected Kronk might be more than an innocent bystander who merely stumbled upon the gruesome scene.

Second, that date range suggested to Baez that state prosecutors had failed to turn those phone records over to him as court rules require.

Kronk is a big part of the defense case, and if the prosecution deliberately failed to turn the records over it would be a serious problem and could possibly lead to a mistrial. However, Baez has accused the prosecution of this kind of thing before and it has always turned out that he was mistaken. Still, it’s an interesting possibility.

The most intriguing speculation I found was at the blog The Hinky Meter in a comment by one of the bloggers, Valhall. He or she thinks that Cheney Mason wants out, because this trial is is “swan song,” and he’s embarrassed by all of Jose Baez’s grandstanding and underhanded tactics. Mason is the only attorney on the defense team with experience in death penalty cases. That would surely throw a wrench into the defense’s plans. Read the whole comment to get a sense of Valhall’s reasons for thinking this.

What do you other Trial followers think?

Family Dynamics and the Casey Anthony Trial

Posted: June 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: child sexual abuse, children, Crime, physical abuse, psychology | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 61 Comments

Cindy, Casey, and Lee Anthony

Since it’s Saturday night on a slow news day, I thought I’d share some of my impressions about Casey Anthony and her family. I’m by no means an expert on this case–I only began following it right after the trial began. I’ll try to briefly summarize the story behind the trial as I understand it, but I’m going to assume that readers have a basic knowledge of the Anthony case.

This case has been covered so extensively in the media for the past three years that it might even outdo the media circus around the O.J. Simpson trial. This is one reason I never read about the case until recently. I thought the public reaction was kind of repulsive and hysterical. But once I started reading about what happened, I was drawn in by the fascinating story and its psychological aspects.


Background:

Casey Anthony, 25, is on trial in Orlando, Florida, for first degree murder in the death of her daughter Caylee, who was nearly 3 years old. If convicted, Casey could be sentenced to life in prison or death. She is also charged with second degree murder and aggravated child abuse–both of which carry a life sentence.

George Anthony

The story began when Casey became pregnant at age 19. Casey supposedly did not realize she was pregnant until she was 7 months along. Casey’s mother Cindy, a registered nurse, also claims she never realized her daughter was pregnant until then. Casey’s father George went along with the charade too. Once she faced the fact that she was going to have a baby, Casey told friends she wanted to give the child up for adoption; but Cindy pressured her to keep the child, and provide for both of them. The child, Caylee, was born on August 8, 2005 and the mother and child lived with George and Cindy.

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Bradley Manning Could Face Death Penalty

Posted: March 2, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Action Memo, Afghanistan, Foreign Affairs, Iraq, Psychopaths in charge, U.S. Military, U.S. Politics, Wikileaks | Tags: , , , , , , | 20 Comments

Bradley Manning

Remember when the U.S. was a civilized country? Or am I dreaming? Were we ever a civilized country? Are we really supposed to believe that this guy in the White House is a Democrat? This latest outrage is way beyond the pale, as far as I’m concerned:

Sara Sorcher at The National Journal

The U.S. Army today charged Pfc. Bradley Manning with 22 additional offenses related to the release of classified documents to WikiLeaks, including “aiding the enemy,” traditionally a capital offense. But in a release announcing the new charges, the Army said it would not be recommending the death penalty.

The charges, announced after what the Army said was a seven-month investigation, also included wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet where it could be accessed by “the enemy,” theft of public records, transmitting defense information, and fraud in connection with computers. The new counts included five violations of Army regulations as well, the Army release said. During this time Manning has been held in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps Base brig at Quantico, Va.

They won’t recommend the death penalty? I’m not sure why we should believe anything our government tells us anymore. And just who is this “enemy” that Manning supposedly “aided” by releasing a video of war crimes and supposedly leaking diplomatic cables? That is still a mystery, because the army won’t say.

In its Twitter feed, WikiLeaks said the charge of aiding the enemy was “a vindictive attack on Manning for exercising his right to silence. No evidence of any such thing.” It also said the charge suggested that “WikiLeaks would be defined as ‘the enemy.’ A serious abuse.”

Military officials did not respond to a question on Wednesday about who the “enemy” was. The charge sheet, however, accuses the private of giving intelligence to the enemy “through indirect means,” which could suggest that prosecutors are referring to Afghan and Iraqi insurgents rather than to WikiLeaks.

Does anyone think the Afghan and Iraqi insurgents were surprised to learn that U.S. Soldiers have killed innocent civilians in their countries? I’m not sure what they are supposed to get out of the diplomatic cables. I doubt if any of them would be surprised to learn that the Bush administration lied in order to start a war in Iraq.

The Guardian tries and fails to decipher the “aiding the enemy” charge:

The charge involves “giving intelligence to the enemy”, which is defined as “organised opposing forces in time of war but also other hostile body that our forces may be opposing such as a rebellious mob or a band of renegades”. Such an enemy could be civilian or military in nature.

The charge sheet, like the original set of accusations, contains no mention by name of the enemy to which the US military is referring.

It could be WikiLeaks itself, which the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has accused of launching an “attack on America”. Or it could be a reference to enemy forces in Afghanistan.

A report by NBC News said Pentagon officials emphasised that some WikiLeaks material contained names of informants and others working with US forces whose lives could have been put in danger.

That’s bullsh&t, IMHO. I hope they’re ready to present evidence of harm that actually took place as a result of the release of the diplomatic cables.

At FDL, Jane Hamsher has published a statement from Manning’s friend and supporter David House along with a petition to tell Robert Gates to drop the “aiding the enemy” charges. Here is House’s statement:

Through WikiLeaks we have been given direct evidence that the White House openly lies to congress and the American people in order to achieve political ends. Richard Nixon, in an attempt to stifle government transparency, once called Ellsberg “the most dangerous man in America” and accused him of “providing aid and comfort to the enemy.” Today we see the Obama administration continuing the legacy Nixon started by declaring whistleblowers as enemies of the state. It is a sad and dangerous day for transparency advocates everywhere.

President Obama should be ashamed, but I’m not sure he has the capacity for that–or to feel empathy for this young man who has already spent months in prison under conditions tantamount to torture.

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