Real Heros

[Wingspan]

Do you think you caught me out or something?  Taking lessons from Wingnut?

Icons are bad, but I turn people into them nevertheless.  Mostly because I'm weak I suppose. 

Off the jock, Doi

[ice grillin you]

i forgot rick tocchet

[Geowhizzer]

[ice grillin you]

morris dees

Center wins justice for Billy Ray Johnson   
   
  April 20, 2007 — A civil jury in Linden, Texas, today awarded approximately $9 million in damages to Billy Ray Johnson, a mentally disabled black man who was taunted, knocked unconscious and dumped along a desolate road by four white men in September 2003.
The Center brought suit on his behalf in 2005 after the men responsible for the crime received only light jail sentences — 30 days for three of them and 60 days for one.

"On behalf of Billy Ray Johnson, we thank the jury — the conscience of Cass County — for returning a just and fair verdict," said Morris Dees, the Center's founder and chief trial attorney, in a statement to the media after the verdict.

"The defendants in this case treated Billy Ray like trash. They broke his body and threw him in a ditch alongside a deserted road. The jury told all of Texas and, indeed, the entire country that Billy Ray is a human being who deserves to be treated with dignity, that the life of each of us — rich or poor, black or white, abled or disabled — is truly precious. It's a message, I hope, that we always remember."

Johnson, 46, who suffered serious, permanent brain injuries from the attack, will require care for the rest of his life.

The case exposed deep racial fault lines in the East Texas community. Many blacks viewed the episode as a vicious hate crime, but predominantly white juries acquitted two of the defendants of felony charges. Many whites in the town expressed sympathy for the defendants and indifference to Johnson's injuries.

After a four-day trial that began on April 17, the jury of 11 whites and one black deliberated less than four hours before returning a unanimous verdict finding James Cory Hicks and Christopher Colt Amox responsible for Johnson's injuries.

Two other defendants, Dallas Chadwick Stone and John Wesley Owens, earlier reached confidential settlements in the lawsuit.

Jurors said afterward they hoped the verdict sends a message to children in their community and to the nation as a whole.

"Billy Ray is not an 'it,' like one of the defendants said," one juror said. "He is a human being. We hope that our verdict sends a message to the nation about this community."

Another said, "No one — no one — should have to go through what this man went through. And no amount of money can fix that."

All four men were at a "pasture party" on the night of September 28, 2003, when Johnson — 42 at the time but childlike and naive — was picked up from town and brought to the party, where about a dozen people were sitting on tailgates drinking beer.

After a period in which they teased and taunted Johnson, the defendants began talking about beating him up. Amox, who had been a high school pitcher, punched Johnson in the face, knocking him unconscious. Instead of taking Johnson to the hospital, the men threw him into the back of a pickup truck and left him by the side of a remote rural road.

The Cass County juries that heard the criminal cases against Amox, who was 20 at the time, and Hicks, then 24 and a jail employee, acquitted them of serious felony charges and instead handed down lesser convictions with a recommended sentence of probation.

Stone, then 18, and Owens, then 19, were allowed to plead guilty to an "injury to a disabled individual by omission" charge. They testified against Amox and Hicks.

A judge sentenced Owens, Stone and Amox to 30-day terms in the county jail and Hicks to 60 days.

Johnson, who had no criminal background, history of violence or trouble of any kind, lived with his mother and brother before the assault. Now he lives in a Texas nursing home.


just a great organization...educate yourselves

http://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp

[rjs246]

That sure is one rich invalid.

[PhillyPhanInDC]

Bill Hicks

Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration ... that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There's no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we're the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.

It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times.

[PhillyPhreak54]

They need to get on the case of that dude in GA who is locked up for raping a 17yr old girl. He was 18 and she gave him a blow job, consensually, and he got like 40yrs in the can.

And East Texas is racist as hell. That is where Jasper is and Jasper is where John William King, Lawrence Brewer and Shawn Berry chained James Byrd Jr. to the back of their truck and dragged him until his head and arm fell off in 1998.

[Sgt PSN]

They need to get on the case of that dude in GA who is locked up for raping a 17yr old girl. He was 18 and she gave him a blow job, consensually, and he got like 40yrs in the can.

Most definately.  That is such a farged up story, especially since the kid that got locked up was like an all-state type athlete and an honors student as well.  Kid definately had a bright future.  He still will when he sells his story for a few million.......he just may have to wait a few years to collect. 

[ice grillin you]

theres been uncountable stories exactly like that kids in id say the last ten years or so...and it always happens in the south

what i cant believe is the prosecuter in this case didnt even hide the fact that he got the kid locked up for ten years on a blowjob for no other reason than he "believed" he was guilty of rape...forget the fact that he was found innocent

[Rome]

That fat motherfarger from Georgia who prosecuted that kid was a white sheet pointy hat wearing piece of shtein.  I saw the interview he gave and you could tell he just wanted to say "I got that stillupfront good" and be done with it.

Sickening.

[PhillyPhreak54]

It happens alot everywhere, not just the south. The problem is, and I just wrote a paper about this for school, is the fact that the judicial system is farged up from the top on down. The fact that public defenders, which most people have to use,  are shoddy doesn't help. Overworked, underpaid, nowhere near the budget as the prosecution has and many other things that put indigent people in jail sometimes even if they are not guilty.

There needs to be more accountability for prosecutors too. Nifong and the dickbag who prosecuted this kid in GA are two high profile examples of this crap.

[Diomedes]

It happens alot everywhere, not just the south.

Seems to me that half the time I read about a modern day lynching, if it's not in Texas, it's in Vermont?

[rjs246]

The fact that public defenders, which most people have to use,  are shoddy doesn't help. Overworked, underpaid, nowhere near the budget as the prosecution has and many other things that put indigent people in jail sometimes even if they are not guilty.

You're absolutely right and you've just identified the problem with America's public school system as well.

[Diomedes]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-junk-mail22-2008nov22,0,42692.story

best mailman ever

[Tomahawk]

Dumbass should have just thrown it away instead of hording it