More On Felony Murder

This is a followup to my earlier post on felony murder, in which I took Radley Balko and some other bloggers to task for their characterization of the facts of a case discussed in a New York Times article on felony murder. In that case, a guy named Ryan Holle was convicted of murder because he loaned his car to his friends -- after being informed that they intended to use it for a burglary, and that it might be necessary to do violence to a young lady named Jessica Snyder in the course of this burglary, Jessica, age 18, was bludgeoned to death by Mr. Holle's friends.

Radley Balko has now added an update to his earlier post, graciously admitting that he should probably have included in his original post the fact that Holle initially told police that he had been informed about the intended robbery and possible battery. But these facts don't change his mind:

It didn’t affect my opposition to the charge, though, because the guy also said he was drunk, and thought his friends were joking. So his crime here seems to have been an error in judgment. Or maybe an error in judgment affected by drinking too much. I can certainly imagine a scenario in college where I, having no criminal record (this guy didn’t, either), may have had too much too drink at a party, had some acquaintance say, “hey, can we borrow your car?” respond, “why?” and they respond, “because we want to break into someone’s house and steal their weed”,” there’s at least a chance I might have thought they were yanking my chain.

To begin with, Radley seems to be taking Holle's current version at face value, accepting it as fact. But it seems to contradict what he told the police at the time and his own testimony that he'd been told it might be necessary to "knock out" Jessica Snyder. I realize that he works on a lot of these "police abuse" cases, but it isn't necessary to take every convict's claims at face value. More to the point, while Holle apparently didn't have a record, we don't know whether his buddies had records, and that's the relevant question, in determining whether it's likely that Holle thought they were kidding. Sure, if one of my friends said, "can I borrow your car to rob somebody," I'd assume they were joking. But then, there's a pretty good chance (as in, a near-certainty) that they would be joking, because I don't hang out with criminals. If Holle hangs out with criminals, he'd be much less likely to think they were yanking his chain.

But that's not Radley's sole argument:

Believe that about this guy, or don’t. I don’t know how credible this guy is. It does seem clear, though, that he didn’t sit down with these guys and plan the burglary. There’s no mention of him getting a cut of the drugs they planned to steal. His culpability here seems to boil down to a split second of bad judgment. No premeditation. No specific intent. The guy who lent someone his car–after a night of partying under terms where there’s some doubt about whether he knew the real intentions of the lendees–got the same charge and sentence as the guys who committed a premeditated robbery, during which they smashed in a woman’s face with a metal safe. That really sound like a just outcome?

Well, I would have sentenced the actual killer to death, so that would eliminate the disparity between Holle's sentence and the killer's. And I can certainly see arguing for reform of the felony murder rule -- maybe making felony murder a form of second degree murder. But, while Holle didn't plan the murder, he did facilitate by providing transportation. So no, it doesn't strike me as being particularly unjust. He was part of the criminal enterprise.

If the case of Ryan Holle gets your goat, though, this California case really ought to drive you bonkers.

Here's what happened: three young black men, including a 22-year-old named Renato Hughes, broke into the home of Shannon Edmonds, who is white, intending to steal some marijuana. During the course of the burglary, they beat Edmonds' stepson, Dale Lafferty, with a baseball bat, causing permanent brain damage severe enough to render him unable to live independently or even feed himself.

During the course of the robbery, Shannon Edmonds managed to get his gun, and he shot the intruders, killing both of Hughes's accomplices. Edmonds had both marijuana and prescription drugs in his system, but he had prescriptions for both (remember, California has legal medical marijuana). Edmonds isn't charged at all. Renato Hughes, by contrast, is charged with felony murder under the California "provocative acts" doctrine. That's right, he's charged with felony murder in the death of his accomplices, despite the fact that it was the homeowner, not charged, who pulled the trigger.

Predictably, some people are playing the race card. They claim the victim ought to be the one in the dock:

The NAACP complained that prosecutors came down too hard on Hughes, who also faces robbery, burglary and assault charges. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.

The Rev. Amos Brown, head of the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP and pastor at Hughes' church, said the case demonstrates the legal system is racist in remote Lake County, aspiring wine country 100 miles north of San Francisco. The sparsely populated county of 13,000 people is 91 percent white and 2 percent black.

Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free. Tests showed Edmonds had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression.

"This man had no business killing these boys," Brown said. "They were shot in the back. They had fled."

Note the use of the term "boy," despite the fact that the two invaders were 21 and 22, old enough to vote, sign contracts, even buy a beer. All a way of posthumously deflecting responsibility for their own criminality. (I guess Reverend Brown follow the Maureen Dowd theory of childhood.)

According to Reverend Brown's apparent theory, a homeowner has to turn on a dime and hold his fire the second his attackers begin to flee, even if they are still in the house and still a potential threat. That is simply unreasonable -- a home invasion creates a situation of total confusion. Edmonds had no way of knowing whether these people were no longer a threat. And even if they had begun to flee, we have no way of knowing that, with the adrenaline and confusion, this fact had reached his brain at that point. It is absurd to second-guess a homeowner subjected to this sort of attack. (Another reason why police no-knock raids should be strictly limited.)

It is hardly surprising that Hughes's mother is equally outraged. She thinks that her son and his friends were there to buy drugs, not rob the place. Well, I suppose that it is barely possible that this is some sort of drug-deal-gone-bad situation, but it seems unlikely. Most drug sellers don't shoot their customers, and her version doesn't account for the beaten stepson.

It is undoubtedly difficult to face a situation in which your son may well spend the rest of his natural life in prison for a crime he committed at a very young age. It is equally difficult to accept the fact that your son is a thug. But maybe if Judy Hughes and Reverend Brown had done a better job teaching Renato not to break into people's homes to rob them, they wouldn't be facing this predicament today. As in the Jena 6 case, it's a lot easier to cry about racism than to accept responsibility for thuggery.

Frankly, I have sympathy for the real victim, Dale Lafferty, who suffered permanent brain damage. And for Shannon Edmonds, who will undoubtedly suffer anguish over the killings, no matter how justified they were. I have no sympathy left for Renato Hughes or the other two invading beasts killed in the act of their crime. And lest anybody claim racial animus here, I assure you I would have a similar reaction if the invading beasts had been white. If Hughes rots in jail for the rest of his life, well, it's not so bad as what he did to his victims.

This case hasn't gotten a lot of traction in the blogosphere, but I imagine that, if it did, Hughes would get a lot more sympathy, though not from me. I want to acknowledge SteveAudio, whom I credit for the link to the original article. SteveAudio is troubled by what he characterizes as "vigilante style action" by the homeowner. I'd be troubled too if Edmonds had tracked the two guys down and killed them weeks later. But I think it's pretty reasonable to kill attackers who are in your house, particularly when they have beaten one of the occupants with a baseball bat.

Jeralyn over a TalkLeft is also troubled by this case, saying, "I don't like the idea of making defendants liable for the acts of victims." Honestly, I don't see why not -- if the act of the victim is a natural and foreseeable consequence of the crime. In this case, it is eminently predictable that a homeowner might fight back and kill one of the invaders.

Jeralyn also says something else that is quit bizarre. She says that Hughes should be charged with the beating of Dale Lafferty, "assuming it wasn't self-defense." At first I thought this had to be some sort of strange thinko, but then she goes on to say that one of the details she'd like to know is "Was the stepson brandishing a weapon (like a rifle or a gun) at the time he was beaten?"

This suggests that Jeralyn actually believes that these home invaders somehow had the right to engage in "self-defense" with a baseball bat if Dale Lafferty was brandishing a weapon. That's insane -- Lafferty was in his home. He had every right to brandish a weapon at intruders coming into his house. I would argue he had the right to fire a weapon at them. Once you break into somebody's house, you don't have the right to engage in "self-defense."

My Top Five Ever

Megan McArdle links to this Ogged post criticizing the whole enterprise of nominating the best blog posts ever. She says she is more interested in what people would pick for their own best blog posts. So interested, she says, that "I'm like, this close to tagging five bloggers . . . except that I'm afraid they wouldn't do it, and then I'd be like that kid who nobody comes to his birthday party."

Megan's display of insecurity is charming, but of course utterly without rationality. She is an A-lost blogger who gets to hang out with all the cool kids. I mean, there is a whole blog dedicated to running her down, which proves that she is a certified A-lister. However, if she is really worried about "tagging" bloggers and having them ignore her, here's a foolproof method: tag five bloggers much lower in status than herself. They will be so delighted to get a link from Megan McArdle that they will probably name their firstborn son "Megan" just to curry favor with her.

In any case, I am so anxious to curry favor with Ms. McArdle that, in addition to naming my firstborn son "Megan," I will do her bidding even without being tagged.

So here they are: the best of The Cheerful Iconoclast.

At number five, I would put this post, entitled "Libertarians Against Vouchers -- Accpeting Members Now." Granted, it's not exactly consistent with my attempt to curry favor with Megan McArdle, since I express disagreement with her, but I hope that the Mighty Megan can tolerate some amount of dissent.

My fourth favorite post continues my pattern of disagreeing with my heroine Ms. McArdle. This is the post where I articulated the cultural rationale for opposing the Bush-McCain immigration amnesty bill. Essentially I argued that American culture is better at wealth-creation and democratic institution-building than Mexican culture, and that letting more Mexicans in is therefore a bad idea.

I've done a lot of blogging on the whole Jena 6 matter, and a number of my posts on that have stood up pretty well. I considered naming my very first post on the matter, in which I called for skepticism on the media narrative. Or the one (linked by Instapundit!) where I said "I told you so." But my favorite Jena 6 post, and my third favorite overall, is the post where I called the Jena 6 a Mob of Cowardly Thugs.

My second favorite post deals with my favorite topic: religion. The title of the post is "Suck It, Jesus. You Too, Mohammed." In it, I defend Kathy Griffin's comments at the Emmy Awards. Note that I don't just defend her right to say them -- I defend the comments themselves.

Finally, in my favorite blog post (so far), I trash Mother Teresa and her Sadomasochistic Theology. Yep, beating up on a nun is even better than showing Rudy in drag.

Gosh, What a Surprise

Glenn Reynolds links to this Christian Science Monitor article by Craig Franklin about the Jena 6 case. Franklin is a local journalist who has covered the case for the local paper, and his article is a damning indictment of the media's coverage:

The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

In fact, Franklin contends that nearly every aspect of the popular narrative is wrong. He goes through it one-by-one. The whites-only tree wasn't really whites only. The nooses hung on the tree were aimed not at black students but instead at members of the school's rodeo team. The District Attorney never threatened black students. Robert Bailey was punched in the face, not hit with a beer bottle, as he subesequently claimed. (True to form, Newsweek embelished this to his being pelted with beer bottles.) Bailey and his friends did indeed jump a white guy at a convenience store and steal his shotgun. And, finally, Mychall Bell really did hit Justin Barker from behind, and he really was stomped upon by a mob of black students.

Gosh, who could have predicted that the media narrative would turn out to be a bit overstated? Me, maybe? In fact, my first post on the topic, back on September 7, was a call for skepticism about the media narrative. I hate to say "I told you so, but . . ." OK, who am I kidding. I LOVE to say I told you so.

I told you so.

UPDATE: Thanks for the link, Glenn. A hearty welcome to all my new readers. Feel free to check out all my posts on the Jena 6 matter, or look around and see what I have to say about torture, or George W. Bush, or even read some of my restaurant reviews.

UPDATE 2: Minor error fixed.

Jena 6: Somebody Else Finally Gets It

Via Steve Sailer, this article by Vanderbilt law professor Carol Swain. Professor Swain seems to think that the Jena 6 may have been the victims of disparate treatment, but for very personal reasons, she understands that a group beat-down can have terrible consequences:

Much sport has been made of the deadly sneaker that the district attorney introduced as a weapon. What is missed is the fact that sneakers and fists can become lethal weapons under the right circumstances.

Almost a year ago, my 41-year-old brother, Kevin Henderson, died from injuries he sustained on his job after he was attacked by a group of teenage boys.

According to a neighbor who witnessed the attack, five teens knocked my brother to the ground, kicking and stomping him until the neighbor intervened. Kevin staggered home, collapsed into a coma and was declared brain-dead within hours of the attack.

My heart goes out to her -- her brother is dead, beaten to death by a gang of cowardly thugs. Since Professor Swain is black herself, her brother is most likely black as well. So here we have an innocent black man, stomped to death by a gang. Where is Jesse Jackson? Where is Al Sharpton? Where are the demonstrators? Where, for that matter, is CNN?

As Professor Swain puts it:

Black crime is a serious problem that stereotypes all black youth. And it must be dealt with by a united black community that stands up and says enough is enough. Unfortunately, too many of our media-appointed leaders have failed to vigorously condemn the attack of the six against the one. This is unfortunate.

Indeed it is. But if they condemn the attack, they have to recognize that maybe, just maybe, the thugs who attacked Justin Barker deserve punishment. And we can't have that, can we?

Jena 6: The Prosecutor Speaks

Via Ann Althouse, this New York Times op-ed by the much-maligned Jena 6 prosecutor, Reed Walters. All-in-all, he gives a pretty good account of himself, emphasizing some points that have been getting lost. Most importantly, he makes short work of something I've taken issue with myself: the characterization of the case as being about a "schoolyard fight."

Conjure the image of schoolboys fighting: they exchange words, clench fists, throw punches, wrestle in the dirt until classmates or teachers pull them apart. Of course that would not be aggravated second-degree battery, which is what the attackers are now charged with. (Five of the defendants were originally charged with attempted second-degree murder.) But that’s not what happened at Jena High School.

The victim in this crime, who has been all but forgotten amid the focus on the defendants, was a young man named Justin Barker, who was not involved in the nooses incident three months earlier. According to all the credible evidence I am aware of, after lunch, he walked to his next class. As he passed through the gymnasium door to the outside, he was blindsided and knocked unconscious by a vicious blow to the head thrown by Mychal Bell. While lying on the ground unaware of what was happening to him, he was brutally kicked by at least six people.

Imagine you were walking down a city street, and someone leapt from behind a tree and hit you so hard that you fell to the sidewalk unconscious. Would you later describe that as a fight?

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.

Precisely. The defenders of the Jena 6 keep using that term because of the image it creates: two young men engaged in equal combat. I'm actually probably a bit more indulgent of the classic schoolyard fight than most school officials these days. But youthful fisticuffs used to be governed by a code of honor, and the Jena 6 attackers don't know the meaning of the word.

A (Different) Mob of Cowardly Thugs

Via Your Lying Eyes, this YouTube video showing a group of black kids beating up a thirteen-year-old white kid in Norfolk, Virginia. In all likelihood, there won't be any blogstorm over this -- just another beat-down, after all. And the poor dears are only being charged with misdemeanor mob assult, so there can be no claims of overzealous prosecution. I wonder if anybody will bother to protest this behavior. Well, I don't actually wonder -- I know the answer.

Jena 6: The Facts Do Matter

You know, I'd be a lot more inclined to share the outrage in the Jena 6 case if the outraged people were a bit more careful about the facts. Case-in-point: Amina Luqman's Friday Washington Post column. This is Luqman's summary of the facts:

The basic points are these: In the predominantly white town of Jena, La., white students hung three nooses last September after black students sat under a schoolyard tree where white students normally congregated. The white students were suspended for three days. After black students protested peacefully, the LaSalle Parish district attorney threatened them, saying: "I can make your life go away with a stroke of a pen." Eventually there was a schoolyard fight in which a white student was beaten; he was treated for a concussion and multiple bruises. Although the student was well enough to attend a school function the same evening, six black boys between the ages of 15 and 17 were arrested, five of whom were charged as adults with attempted murder and conspiracy.

Where to start? Luqman ignores the beating took place several months after the noose incident. Ignores the fact that the District Attorney's comment was made after there had been several racially-tinged fights on campus, and that there is a factual dispute as to whether the "stroke of a pen" statement was directed toward just the black students or the entire student body.

Likewise, the characterization of the attack on Justin Barker as a "schoolyard fight," while not uncommon, is so misleading as to be tantamount to a lie. The word "fight" implies some degree of mutual combat. Justin Barker appears to have been coldcocked and stomped on by a group of attackers. Mychal Bell, had multiple prior convictions. The "school function" that he attended that night was a once-in-a-lifetime ceremony at a small-town school. This would have taken, what, ten minutes of googling? Or the two minutes it took to read my summary of the facts.

So why didn't Luqman bother? Because actually sitting down and thinking about the facts introduces ambiguity, uncertainty, shades of grey. Because you might not be so sure where you stand after a while. But Luqman prefers righteous indignation:

This language presumes a legitimacy to both sides, a fair fight. Yet there is nothing balanced or fair about what is happening to these boys. Black Americans crave the same outrage the media rained down on Michael Vick for his unjustified abuse of dogs. For mainstream America, Vick's actions were beyond debate. "How could he be so cruel?" we lamented. Whatever the reason, mainstream America said clearly that what Vick did was wrong. Shouldn't America be at least as appalled by how Jena has treated these six black teens?

Maybe America should be more appalled by what these six black teens are accused of doing. And by the fact that many of their defenders don't seem to care.

The Jena Shotgun Incident: I Knew There Might Be More To It Than That

The primary argument made by the "Free the Jena 6" crowd is that there's been racial disparity: the Jena 6 are, they claim, being treated less favorably than whites who committed similar, or even more serious offenses.

The "shotgun" incident inolves a student named Matt Windham, who pulled a shotgun on three black students, including at least one of the Jena 6, Robert Bailey. This incident has received huge play among those who believe the Jena 6 have suffered an injustice. Nearly all of the discussions of this incident state or imply that the white with the shotgun was the agressor. Few give any indication that there is a substantial factual dispute. Over at collorofchange.org, for example, they summarize it thusly:

Black students at a convenience store were threatened by a young white man with a shotgun. They wrestled the gun from him and ran away. While no charges were filed against the white man, the students were arrested for the theft of the gun.

Radley Balko, in his e-mail to Glen Reynolds says "In one case, a white kid pulled a shotgun on three black kids." Michael David Murphy, who has been giving this story quite a bit of attention, has a similar characterization:

Three black teens were in the store, including two of the Jena Six, and when they left, they were confronted by a white man with a loaded shotgun. The teens wrestled the gun from him and fled.

NPR has a somewhat more detailed report:

The next day, tensions escalated at a local convenience store. Bailey exchanged words with a white student who had been at the party. The white boy ran back to his truck and pulled out a pistol grip shotgun. Bailey ran after him and wrestled him for the gun.

From these cursory and one-sided reports, you would hardly think that there was any controversy at all regarding the shotgun incident. Yet, when I heard about it, I kept scratching my head, wondering if that was all there was. Lo and behold, Patterico at Patterico's Pontifications linked to this story in the local Jena Times (you have to scroll down a bit to find the story). It turns out that there are two sidies to this shotgun incident, after all:

The victim, Matt Windham, alleges that three black males attacked and robbed him while the three accused are claiming self defense.

Both the victim and those arrested offered different statements to police, however, eye witnesses to the event unrelated to the victim or those arrested gave a report of the incident that corresponded with the victim.

Now, maybe the Jena Times is a racist rag covering up for a corrupt power structure. Maybe they're just sloppy about the facts. Maybe they don't want their town to look bad. I don't know whether this report is accurate. And I sure don't know what happened in that parking lot.

I do know one thing, however. I know that there is a factual dispute as to what happened. I know that both sides are claiming self-defense. Now, the pro-Jena 6 folks are free to believe Bailey's account if they like. But, at a minimum, honesty should compel them to acknowledge that the facts are in serious dispute.

Once it is acknowledged that, indeed, the shotgun might well have been pulled in self-defense, that element of the claim of racial disparity evaporates.

Jena 6 -- More Fact, More Thoughts

The Jena 6 have hit the big-time, now, with several A-List bloggers chiming in. Instapundit, Megan McArdle, and Orin Kerr over at Volokh have all weighed in, now. I think that all of them share Professor Kerr's sense that it's hard to get a sense of what the real facts are. One of the -- many -- things about the pro Jena 6 activists that rubs me wrong is their absolute certitude about what the facts are, when there is a great deal murk to the whole thing.

As I noted earlier, this case is a situation in which everybody has to be on the lookout for "confirmation bias" -- the natural human tendency to view the facts in the light most favorable to preexisting beliefs. It's quite possible that I myself fell for that, to some degree, when I wrote my Cowardly Thugs post. At the time I wrote that post, I was not aware that some claims of factual innocence had been made. Since then, my position has evolved somewhat. I read one report that, if true, would raise serious questions as to the procedural fairness of Bell's trial.

While I still suspect these are the guys who did the deed, if I were writing my Cowardly Thugs post today, I would clarify that Barker's attackers are cowardly thugs, whoever they might turn out to be. That is, I would admit to at least some uncertainty as to their guilt. I still think that a one-against-many beatdown is cowardly, but I admit of some uncertainty as to whether these guys are the cowards in question.

Since my prior posts on this matter, a couple of interesting factual tidbits have come my way. First, this local article, which I found courtesy of Kevin at Megan McArdle's, as well as this informative writeup bit by a local minister, via Steve Sailer.

The local news article helps to flesh out some of the facts, and also exposes a perspective I've tried to highlight here: that of the victim:

All you hear is, 'Justice for the Jena Six,'" David Barker said of his son's case. "I wouldn't mind justice for the one. It doesn't matter the race -- what matters is what happened to our son."

Absolutely right. The victim is getting lost in all this -- lost or even attacked. While claims of racism need to be addressed, too many people are losing sight of the fact that there was a real-live victim here. Even worse, some people are going so far as to claim that he deserved it. For example, one of my own commenters said, Caps Lock and all, "SOMETHING TELL ME JUSTIN WILL THINK TWICE BEFOR HE GOES CALLIN BLACK PEOPLE NIGGERS. " One of Megan's commenters was equally vile in his sentiments, if more literate: "First, the kid who was beaten was taunting the students. If you taunt someone and you get your ass kicked - it's your own fault."

These constant attempts to claim that Barker wasn't really hurt all that badly, or that he deserved it, or that a tennis shoe isn't a deadly weapon -- as if his attackers took off their shoes and slapped him with them, rather than stomping on him on the ground -- really rub me the wrong way. And it is 100% clear that if the races were reversed in this case -- if a group of white football players stomped on a black kid -- the folks who are trying to minimize the victim's injuries would be howling for blood.

Eddie Thompson, a local minister, has penned a very informative essay about the controversy, which I commend to my readers in full. Interestingly, Thompson admits that Jena has problems with racism and bigotry, and he seems to think that the Jena 6 were overcharged, which is probably reasonable. But he also provides a firsthand perspective not always reflected in media and blogger accounts.

Granted, some of his points are a bit, uh, trivial. For example, he says that there were two nooses, not three, in the infamous tree. Well, OK -- the point is that there were nooses. The exact number isn't critical.

But other factual claims are certainly interesting, if in fact they are true. For example, as I noted in my synopsis of the background facts, it has been widely reported that the students who put up the nooses were given a short in-school suspension. Thompson claims this isn't true, or at least it's not complete:

The actions of the three white students who hung the nooses demonstrate prejudice and bigotry. However, they were not just given “two days suspension” as reported by national news agencies. After first being expelled, then upon appeal, being allowed to re-enter the school system, they were sent to an alternative school, off-campus, for an extended period of time. They underwent investigations by Federal and Sate authorities. They were given psychological evaluations. Even when they were eventually allowed back on campus they were not allowed to be a part of the general population for weeks.

If true, this suggests that the original noose-hangers were not given just given a slap-on-the-wrist. And he adds some disturbing details about the fight itself and its aftermath:

There was no “fight” on December 4, 2006 at Jena High School, as the national media continues to characterize the event in question. Six students attacked a single student who was immediately knocked unconscious. According to sworn testimony, they stomped him, as he lay “lifeless” upon the ground.

Justin Barker, the white student attacked, was not the first white student targeted by these black students. Others had been informed they were going to be beaten, but stayed away from school and out of sight until they felt safe.

CNN reported that there were “obviously no witnesses to the fight.” In fact, over thirty eyewitnesses, students and teachers, were questioned immediately following the attack, all of who implicated one or more of the black students arrested in the case. In fact, some of the accused black students did not stop stomping Barker until they were pulled away from him by some of the teachers, according to testimony given in the trial of Mychal Bell.

The media continues to make the point that Justin Barker “attended a party” later that evening, insinuating that his injuries were not very severe. The Barkers, by no means a wealthy family, face medical bills already over $12,000 from the emergency room visit. Imagine what an overnight visit would have cost. Justin Barker was advised to remain hospitalized but decided he would not let the event keep him from participating in the once-in-a-lifetime, traditional Ring Ceremony at First Baptist Church in Jena, where class rings are presented to the upcoming senior class.

[Formatting altered somewhat because I'm too much of a klutz to duplicate his exact format on Blogger.] All of this, I think, points to the brutality of the attack, and the unfairness of using the fact that Barker attended a ceremony that night against him. Particularly disturbing is the allegation that the attack wasn't some spontaneous outburst brought on by Barker's taunting, but was instead premeditated.

And he supports what those of us night blinkered by our ideology have already figured out. These kids are not a bunch of angels, but are instead a bunch of juvenile delinquents who have been coddled because they're football players:

The “Jena Six” have repeatedly been held up as heroes by much of the race-based community and called “innocent students” by the national media. Some of these students have reputations in Jena for intimidating and sometimes beating other students. They have vandalized and destroyed both school property and community property. Some of the Jena Six have been involved in crimes not only in LaSalle Parish but also in surrounding parishes. For the most part, coaches and other adults have prevented them from being held accountable for the reign of terror they have presided over in Jena. Despite intervention by adults wanting to give them chances due their athletic potential, most of the Jena Six have extensive juvenile records. Yet their parents keep insisting that their children have never been in trouble before. These boys did not receive prejudicial treatment but received preferential treatment until things got out of hand.

This article says it all. Mychal Bell was on probation until his 18th birthday for a battery which occurred on Christmas Day, 2005. In early September of 2006 -- just a few months before the Jena 6 attack -- Bell was "adjudicated" for battery and criminal damage to property. A few days later, he rushed for 108 yards and three touchdowns.

Back to Jena (Again)

I got an e-mail earlier suggesting that perhaps this post contradicted this earlier post -- the one where I called Justin Barker's attackers cowardly thugs. To some degree my thoughts have been modified as I've read more about the case. Specifically, I read this account, which suggested that the evidence against Mychal Bell was weak, and that there were improprieties during the trial. If proven, I think that these allegations would justify a new trial. That said, I don't know whether these allegations of improprieties are true -- I found them in what is obviously an advocacy pieces, and they may not be borne out. I now think that there's some question as to whether these six guys are the ones who attacked Barker.

Nonetheless, I still stand by the two points I made earlier. It's despicable for the Jena 6 advocates to run around saying that Barker wasn't hurt very much, to try to minimize his injuries or the brutality of the attack. And, I have to add, it's a pretty lousy rhetorical strategy -- if they aren't the guys who did it, why are their partisans attacking the victim. Granted, it's not logically inconsistent to say a) the attack wasn't that serious, and b) our guys didn't do it. But "our guys didn't do it" is such an obviously-superior argument, I have to wonder why it hasn't been given more prominence.

And I continue to believe that the people who did the attack -- whoever they might be -- are cowardly thugs. I admit to some possible doubt as to whether it is these guys, but whoever it is, they're cowardly thugs.

The Jena 6 -- Kevin's Comment and a Response

I want to thank Kevin for his polite and respectful comment to my first post on the Jena 6 matter. Kevin points to his own synopsis on his blog, which strongly supports the "Jena 6 are victims of racist treatment" thesis. Kevin says to me: "You should actually look at the facts of the case before you call for skepticism. " With all due respect to Kevin, I thought I did look at the facts -- my second post gives a fairly long recitation of the facts. If nothing else, it gives quite a few links by which readers can evaluate my judgments. Certainly if I have made any factual errors, I would ask Kevin or any of my other readers to correct any specific mistakes. I don't claim to be immune from error, but I would hope that somebody who is claiming I haven't considered all the facts would identify specific salient facts which we could then discuss.

That said, I think that Kevin has one thing exactly backwards. Skeptical inquiry should precede judgment of any claim. That is, one should ask skeptical questions first and then decide whether there is an injustice, rather than holding off on the skepticism because one sees an injustice. In fact, it's situations like this, where emotions run strong, where the risk of confirmation bias is at its peak. As the Skeptics' Dictionary explains, confirmation bias causes one "to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs."

I hasten to add that people don't fall prey to confirmation bias because they are stupid or dishonest. They fall prey to confirmation bias because they're human, and it appears that this is the way the human mind is wired. And, just to be clear, I don't exempt myself from that. So if Kevin or any other reader has a specific example of a fact that I've overlooked or gotten wrong, I will be happy to correct the record.

In this case, though, I think it is at least possible that some of the pro-Jena 6 bloggers are being led astray by confirmation bias -- spinning the facts in a manner that supports their preexisting conclusion. For example, Kevin said in his original post that "A black teenager was jumped at a party and a bottle was broken over his head by a white teenager." In a subsequent comment (made in response to me), he said "Please look at how the white folks were treated for attacking a black youth."

I assume here that he is talking about the incident in which Robert Bailey -- one of the Jena 6 -- was assaulted at a party, and for which a white man was charged with a misdemeanor. Kevin is making a straight-line argument here -- A) Robert Bailey was assaulted in a manner identical to Justin Barker; B) the white-on-black atttack on Bailey was treated as a misdemeanor, while the black-on-white attack was treated as a felony; C) Therefore, an injustice occurred.

In order for that argument to be valid, however, one would have to show that, in fact, the two assaults were identical. And this is where confirmation bias comes into play. I would agree that, if Bailey was struck on the head with a beer bottle, his attacker should have been charged with a more serious offense. A beer bottle certainly qualifies as a dangerous weapon. However, Kevin is repeating as fact a disputed, or at least unproven allegation. This Washington Post article says that Bailey claims to have been hit on the head with a beer bottle, but does not mention corroboration. Newsweek asserts that he was "punched and beaten with beer bottles," but it is so far the only source I have found claiming there was more than one bottle, and given Newsweek's questionable record of accuracy, I'm not sure we can credit this account.

The accounts of the altercation at which Bailey claims to have been hit with the beer bottle differ from source to source. This local publication gives an account of the incident which puts it in a somewhat different light:

On Dec. 1, there was a private, invitation-only birthday party at the Fair Barn. Around 11 p.m., five black students tried to come into the party but were told by a woman that they weren't allowed inside without an invitation. The boys persisted, saying they had friends inside. A white man then jumped in front of the woman, and a fight started.

A group broke the two up, and the woman asked the white man, not a student, and the black students to leave the party. Once outside, another fight started between a group of white men, not students, and the black students. Police were called, and a white man was arrested. He pleaded guilty to simple battery.

Even though there were reports of one of the black students receiving injuries that required medical attention, there is no record of that.

That's a bit different than Kevin's account, no? Confirmation bias at work. Kevin, and those others who rely upon the prior attack on Bailey to demonstrate a claimed disparity," ignore or undervalue contradictory evidence." In this case, they ignore the fact that Bailey's claim to have been hit with a beer bottle is wholly uncorroborated, and that there appears to be no evidence he sought medical attention. They ignore the fact that, at least on this account, the fight appears to have been mutual combat involving approximately evenly-matched groups, not a six-on-one beat-down. And the people who think it is really, really relevant that Justin Barker allegedly engaged in racial taunts prior to being attacked don't seem at all concerned that Bailey and his friends were trespassing and trying to crash a party.

Note that I'm not saying the prior attack on Bailey shouldn't have been treated as a felony, and that there is no possibility of disparate treatment here. I'm saying that Kevin and the folks campaigning for the Jena 6 haven't proven disparate treatement, and that there are legitimate factual disputes.

All that said, of course I find certain aspects of this case to be troubling. For example, one account cited by Kevin suggests there were improprieties involving Mychal Bell's jury:

An all-White jury, which, allegedly, included friends of the District Attorney as well as family members of the victim, found Bell guilty, despite the fact that many of the 17 witnesses the prosecution brought forth stated that they did not see Bell hit Barker, nor could Barker testify with certainty that Bell had assaulted him. Those who did testify against him offered conflicting testimony.

I haven't read any of this any place else, and I'm not familiar with the publication in which the article appeared. It is clearly advocacy article and therefore deserves skepticism. Nonetheless, if these allegations are borne out, then of course Bell deserves at a minimum a new trial. If these claims are true, Mychal Bell's advocates should be raising these points, rather than harping on irrelevancies.

One final note: In this article, Tina Jones, Bryant Purvis's mother, asserts that her son wasn't involved in the incident. Now of course she would say that, but it is at least refreshing to read one the family members asserting actual innocence. It struck me before that almost nobody seemed to be saying "I am innocent of this crime," or "my kid didn't do it," and to the extent there is real factual doubt as to whether any of these kids did it, the government should have to prove its case in a fair trial.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Bell's mother also proclaims his innocence. At this point, I really have no idea how plausible these claims of innocence are, or how strong the case against them was. I'd like to hear more about that, and less "racism, blah, blah, blah." I think that if they did it, these kids deserve to spend a good long time in prison, but I don't yet know enough to form an opinion as to their guilt or innocence.

The Jena 6 -- A Mob of Cowardly Thugs

This is the final installment of my three part series on the Jena 6. In Part I, I talked about how, as in the Duke Lacrosse case, an appealing narrative can trump the facts, and I suggested that maybe, just maybe, a bit of skepticism was justified. Since nearly everybody -- even Jonah Goldberg -- has jumped on the "Free the Jena 6" bandwagon, somebody ought to at least raise a few points on the other side. Part II provided the whole ugly background, but I want to emphasize again that I don't think any of that stuff matters. Yes, it adds to that In the Heat of the Night vibe, but what is relevant is what occurred on December 4, 2006, when Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, and an unnamed minor attacked Justin Barker, stomped on him with their feet, and knocked him unconscious.

It's important to note what they defenders of the Jena 6 are not arguing. They're not proclaiming actual innocence. They're not saying the attack didn't happen, or that it's a case of mistaken identity, or even that Justin Barker attacked them and they were trying to subdue him. Nope -- they do claim he "taunted" Robert Bailey, but that's no excuse.

The defenders of the Jena 6 consistently try to minimize the victim's injuries. Justin Barker had a concussion, and his eye was swollen shut from the beating. A concussion is a head injury, and any head injury can be life threatening. And yet, the word "concussion" is often left out when describing Barker's injuries. For example, this YouTube video -- endorsed by Radley Balko -- fails to mention the word concussion, and it bends over backwards to minimize Barker's injuries. It's true, by the way, that Barker attended a "ring ceremony" at his high school the night after the beating, but I don't think it is fair to characterize it as a mere social event, or to use that fact against him.

This USA Today report waxes eloquent about the grassroots movement to free the Jena 6, but it barely mentions the victim, Justin Barker, and it never uses the word "concussion." Radley Balko over at The Agitator -- whose work I have praised in the past -- has mentioned the Jena 6 case several times, but a search on his site for the name "Justin Barker" turns up -- nothing. To Balko and the other defenders of the Jena 6, the actual victim of the attack becomes invisible. Even worse, one blogger, Laura at "Pursuing Holiness," went so far as to list the more serious injuries that could have been inflicted:

Stomped on badly? Where are the broken ribs, bodywide contusions and abrasions, renal injuries? Stepped on face? Where’s the broken nose, loose and missing teeth?

What's Laura trying to say, that they should have stomped on him harder? They didn't bust his nose and cause renal injuries, so it's OK? In a later post, Laura went so far as to post a picture of the beaten Justin Barker and opine that his injuries weren't really that bad. I wonder how Laura would feel if somebody posted a picture of a female victim of domestic violence and said "he didn't beat her up so badly. What's the big deal?"

Words cannot express how despicable this is.

Which leads me to the most despicable part of all. SIX students -- Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Corwin Jones, Bryant Pervis, The Shaw, and an unnamed minor attacked ONE guy. Some of the Jena defenders want to characterize this as a fight -- Laura casually asserts that "Kids in school fight on a regular basis." Garden State Subversive calls the attack a "school yard fight."

It wasn't a fight -- it was a beating. A fight is when two relatively equally matched individuals square off, one-on-one. If Mychal Bell or any single one of his accomplices had fought Barker one-on-one it might still be a crime, but there are those who argue that manly fisticuffs should be tolerated. But a group attack on a single victim violates the code of manly combat. As does stomping on a guy when he's already down and semi-conscious.

Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Corwin Jones, Bryant Pervis, The Shaw, and that one unnamed minor are cowards. Six star football players attack one guy and kick him on the ground -- and nobody even mentions that it was a despicable, cowardly act? If you want to argue that they were overcharged, fine, make your argument. I disagree, but that's OK. But at least acknowledge that what they did was wrong, and wrong in a way that shows that there is something rotten to the core about those six. If I could talk to Mychal Bell's parents right now, I'd ask them if they are ashamed to have raised a son who has to fight his fights at six-to-one odds. Maybe if he's released he will beat up a dwarf for an encore. Maybe he can get a couple of his friends to back him up, in case the dwarf is particularly fit.

And let me add just this one final point. If we reverse the races, I very much doubt that people would be posting pictures of a black victim and callously proclaiming he didn't look that badly hurt. I doubt they'd be quibbling about whether shoes can be deadly weapons, when worn by high school football players. (Answer: of course they can.) I suspect that they would at least take note of the fact that the attack wasn't a fair fight, but was instead a six-on-one affair. I suspect that when the attempted murder charge was reduced, there would have been howls of outrage -- not because the remaining charges would be too severe, but because I think that the defenders of the Jena 6 would be more than willing to see six white football players stomping on a lone black victim as attempted murder.

Or, better yet, attempted lynching.

[Update: More thoughts here and here.]

The Jena Six -- Background Facts

This is the second part of a three part series on the Jena 6 case. Part I can be found here. Part III should be up in short order, and when it is I will provide the link. [Update: Part III here.]

The Jena 6 case is about six high school students in Jena Louisiana all of whom have been charged, in connection with an attack on a fellow student named Justin Barker. One of the six, sixteen-year-old Mychal Bell, the only one to go to trial thus far, has been convicted, and he faces serious prison time. The other five still await trial.

In this post, I'm going to review the background events leading up to the attack on Justin Barker. I do so because everybody is talking about this stuff, and such knowledge may be necessary to understand some elements of the case. However, let me be clear that I think all of the background stuff is utterly and completely irrelevant to the question of whether the Jena 6 are being treated unjustly.

Even if it is true that Jena is a horrible, racist town, and that all sorts of bad things happen, this doesn't give them license to stomp their fellow students into the ground. Unless they can show self-defense or the like, the preceding events just don't matter. What matters is what they did on that December day.

But it is important, I guess, to understand the context. Factual background can be found in this Washington Post article, or in the Wikipedia entry. At Jena High School, in Jena Louisiana, there is a shade tree which white students would sit under when they were outside. Black students sat elsewhere. This was not a school-mandated rule, but appeared to be an ingrained custom.

A black student asked permission of a school administrator to sit under that tree. It's not clear to me whether in fact any black students actually sat under the tree, but what is clear is that, shortly thereafter, three nooses were hung from the tree. When it turned out that some white students had placed the nooses in the tree, the school's principal recommended expulsion, but his decision was overturned, and the sentence was reduced to a three-day in-school suspension.

This resulted in a great deal of consternation among the black residents of Jena, who thought the punishment was too leniant. A number of ugly incidents followed. In school, there were fights and verbal conflicts among white and black students. The school was set ablaze, and ultimately had to be gutted and rebuilt. Both blacks and whites blame members of the other group for the arson.

One precipitating incident involved five black students, including one named Robert Bailey. They attempted to enter a private party which included white students, and a fight resulted. As a result of that fight, a white man named Justin Sloan was charged with simple battery. Bailey alleged that Sloan broke a bottle over his head, but there is no indication that he sought medical treatment.

Shortly after the party, there was an incident at a local convenience store. The facts are in some dispute, but one of the whites who had attended that party ran into Bailey and some of his friends. There was an altercation of some sort, during the course of which the white student pulled a shotgun from his truck. Bailey and his friends wrestled it away from him and refused to return when asked to do so.

Following this incident, the white studend who pulled the shotgun was not charged, but Bailey was charged with theft of a firearm, robbery, and disturbing the peace.

The assault on Justin Barker, the event that resulted in the Jena 6 prosecution, occured shortly thereafter. The Wikipedia article describes the assault thusly:

The following Monday, December 4, a white student named Justin Barker, aged 17, loudly discussed - "bragged," as characterized by National Public Radio - how Bailey had been beaten up by a white man that Friday night. When Barker walked out of the school gymnasium into the courtyard later that day, he was assaulted by Bailey and five other black students, and was temporarily knocked unconscious. The concussion he suffered has been described in the media as resulting either from a punch to the face or from hitting his head on concrete when thrown to the ground. While on the ground, Barker was kicked repeatedly. Barker was examined by a doctor at the local hospital. After two hours of treatment and observation for his concussion and an eye that had swollen shut, Barker was discharged in time to go to the school Ring Ceremony that evening.In the meantime the six black students, eventually dubbed the "Jena Six", were arrested.

The six students, including Robert Bailey, Mychal Bell, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw, and an unidentified juvenile, were originally charged with aggravated assault, but that was later riased to attempted to attempted second-degree murder. Mychall Bell, who has been convicted of four prior juvenile offenses, was the first to face trial. At his trial, the charges were reduced to aggravated second-degree battery, and conspiracy to commit aggravated second-degree battery, and he was convicted on both counts. The judge recently tossed the conspiracy count, meaning he will face a potential sentence of fifteen years in prison.

So what do I think about all this? Well, I think that the kids who put up the nooses should have been given a punishment more serious than a three-day in-school suspension. I think that the kid who pulled a shotgun should probably have been charged with a crime, and that the people who kept it probably shouldn't have (unless we learn more facts -- that he pulled it in self-defense, for example). And I think that the adults in Jena -- of all races -- have, by the look of things, behaved like children.

But like I said at the beginning, I don't think any of that stuff matters to the issue at hand. The issue at hand is whether we all ought to get up in arms about the punishment these six defendants face. I'll talk about that in part three.

The Jena 6 -- Maybe We Should Show Some Skepticism Here

This is the first of a planned three part series on the so-called Jena 6 case. Part II can be found here. Part III should be up in short order. [UPDATE: Part III here.]

It's now the conventional wisdom -- pretty much conceded -- that the media elites messed up the Duke Lacrosse case, and how. Stuart Taylor and KC Johnson, both of whom have done great work on this case, have an Op-Ed in Today's Washington Post which gives a concise -- and damning -- recapitulation. Their summary dovetails with an article last month by John Leo (via Instapundit). In his article, Leo discusses a number of well-publicized media and academic messups: the Duke Lacrosse case, the New Republic Scott Thomas Beuachamp affair, the coverage of Cindy Sheehan, Rigoberto Menchu' s largely fictional memoir, which helped her pick up a Nobel Prize.

Often, when the facts contradict the media narrative, we get some variation of "fake, but accurate." Leo Quotes Even Thomas of Newsweek as saying "The narrative was right but the facts were wrong." Nor is this the only time we've heard that particular line. As Leo notes, "After the Tawana Brawley hoax was exposed, the Nation magazine ran an article saying that 'in cultural perspective, if not in fact, it doesn't matter whether the crime occurred or not,' since the pattern of whites abusing blacks is true."

In every "big media screwup" case that I can recall, the media found a compelling story that it wanted to believe. The story was so good that nobody bothered to be skeptical about the actual facts. Or at least they didn't bother until pretty late in the game. An earlier example would be the McMartin preschool case, now pretty widely conceded to be an example of sexual abuse hysteria. The whole idea that children were being sexually abused in Satanic rituals was pretty farfetched to start with, but nobody thought of that until quite a few lives were ruined.

So why didn't the media show more skepticism, sooner? I don't think anybody knows, but I suspect that part of it was that really heinous allegations often short-circuit critical judgment. Another part was that they didn't want to be seen as attacking children. There was probably some amount of -- obviously misplaced -- faith in the mental health professionals who pushed such allegations. But I suspect that a big part was that it was just a good story, too good to check.

In the Duke Lacrosse case and the Brawley case, you have a situation in which media and academic elites want desperately to believe a certain thing. They wanted to believe a tale of privileged whites victimizing a black woman because it plays into their liberal presuppositions about how the world works. And inconvenient questions didn't get asked -- at least not initially -- because the story was so appealing.

So what general lessons can be gleaned from Rathergate, the Duke Lacrosse case, the Tawana Brawley case, and the sexual abuse cases of the eighties? Let me suggest that it's not a bad idea to show some healthy skepticism, to ask the hard questions, and to withhold judgment until all the facts are in. This is particularly true when, as in the Duke Lacrosse case, the media narrative conforms closely to the way liberal elites are wont to view the world.

And that leads me to the whole "Jena 6" matter.

I first discovered the whole issue on Radley Balko's blog, where he has mentioned the case a few times. It has started to really get a fair amount of attention -- it's been covered in the Washington Post and now by CNN, and a Google Search for "Jena 6" yields over three million hits, and it goes without saying that they have a Wikipedia Entry. And, so far at least, the views expressed are pretty unanimous -- Radley Balko referred to the case as an example of "racial ugliness;" Jonah Golddberg opined that it sounded like they'd gotten a "raw deal;" other blogs have discussed the case. One blogger characterizes the situation as being "clearly unjust," and most people seem to agree with that sentiment. There's an online petition if you want to sign up!

Now, I'm not ready to say that this is another Duke Lacrosse case, but I do think a bit of skepticism is in order. "Poor innocent black kids railroaded by racist whites" is a position that happens to dovetail quite neatly with the natural inclinations of blogospheric and media elites. So maybe, just maybe, it would be a good idea to show a bit of skepticism here, particularly given the apparent unanimity of opinion.