The South Shall Be Risible Again!

Update: Some good news for justice and Mychal Bell

Louisiana's 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, acting on an emergency defense appeal, reversed the aggravated second-degree battery conviction of Mychal Bell, 17, ruling that the youth had been tried improperly as an adult in a case that has raised allegations of unequal justice in the small, mostly white town.
[...]
[Prosecutor] Walters later reduced the charges to aggravated second-degree battery, contending at Bell's trial -- the first case to go to court -- that the tennis shoes Bell was wearing constituted a dangerous weapon.

Walters said in a statement Friday that he intended to appeal the reversal of Bell's conviction to the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Bastard!

Below the graphic are some lowlights from the original post.
Artist's conception of judge and jury
Via Pursuing Holiness we bring you the latest noose:

Racial demons rear heads

JENA, La. -- [...]One morning last September, students arrived at the local high school to find three hangman's nooses dangling from a tree in the courtyard.

The tree was on the side of the campus that, by long-standing tradition, had always been claimed by white students, who make up more than 80 percent of the 460 students. But a few of the school's 85 black students had decided to challenge the accepted state of things and asked school administrators if they, too, could sit beneath the tree's cooling shade.

"Sit wherever you want," school officials told them. The next day, the nooses were hanging from the branches.
[...]
Three white students were quickly identified as being responsible, and the high school principal recommended that they be expelled.
[...]
But Jena's white school superintendent, Roy Breithaupt, ruled that the nooses were just a youthful stunt and suspended the students for three days, angering blacks who felt harsher punishments were justified.

"Adolescents play pranks," said Breithaupt
[...]
But the LaSalle Parish district attorney, Reed Walters, opted to charge six black students with attempted second-degree murder and other offenses, for which they could face a maximum of 100 years in prison if convicted. All six were expelled from school.
[...]
Black teen convicted in beating of white student
[...]
Those charges could lead to a sentence of more than 20 years for Bell
[...]
The five-woman, one-man jury started deliberating around 11 a.m. Thursday and returned around 2 p.m.

Boy, we're gonna give you a fair trial ... and then we'll hang you.



(Cross posted at Vidiotspeak)

Momma's gonna make all of your nightmares come true.

To everyone coming from Crooks & Liars, thanks! Please, check in at my main page for another update about the lovely & talented Deryk.


Über-scold Dr. Laura seems to have not taken her own advice, unless she intentionally set out to raise the Spawn of Satan. From Progressive Gold we find:

Dr Laura Schlessinger is a rightwing radio ‘therapist’, wannabe tv star and self-help book author, whose fans absolutely lap up her harsh strictures on sexuality, relationships and child-rearing.

Her show’s syndicated on Clear Channel radio US-wide; Clear Channel, part-owned by Mormon presidential hopeful Mitt Romney’s private equity firm, Bain Capital (which has all kinds of interesting connections with some decidedly neofascist types) has a history of manufacturing and broadcasting far-right reactionary radio ‘personalities’.

. . . Who knows how many children’s lives she’s affected with her self-interested, twisted ideas? Well, one at least has been severely affected according to this report, and having found out what unpleasant child-rearing ideas his mother has it comes as no surprise - in fact it almost seems inevitable.

Read the whole article above for the back story about Dr. Laura and more links to her hypocrisy and nastiness. Meanwhile, the Salt Lake Tribune article linked above has the full story about her son:

The soldier son of talk radio relationship counselor Laura Schlessinger is under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called "repulsive."

The MySpace page, publicly available until Friday when it disappeared from the Internet, included cartoon depictions of rape, murder, torture and child molestation; photographs of soldiers with guns in their mouths; a photograph of a bound and blindfolded detainee captioned "My Sweet Little Habib"; accounts of illicit drug use; and a blog entry headlined by a series of obscenities and racial epithets.

The site is credited to and includes many photographs of Deryk Schlessinger, the 21-year-old son of the talk radio personality known simply as Dr. Laura. Broadcast locally on 570 KNRS, "Family Values Talk Radio," the former family counselor spends three hours daily taking calls and offering advice on morals, ethics and values. She broadcast a show from Fort Douglas, in Salt Lake City, last week.

So I guess she is her son's mother after all. How many children of Right-Wing faux-moralists fail to live up the strict standards of their parents? In this case, however, he seems to have followed in her bigoted hypocritical footsteps, while taking his hate to a new pinnacle.


Update: But wait, there's more!


Progressive Gold, where we found this story, add this on the sweet charming Deryk, from our friend BradBlog:

But here's a better video of the incident which includes an interview with the guy who wouldn't identify himself to reporters after they'd told him they had video of him kicking the female protester when she was down. That report "kicked off" an all-out manhunt for the guy in the following days.

Well, the manhunt seems to be over! The fine young Republican seems to have finally been identified, according to Jesus' General! His name: Deryk Schlessinger. And guess who's little bunchkin he turns out to be?!!

Apparently, he is his mom's kid after all!

HUGE creds to the Jesus' General Blog for getting the skinny on this one!

I wonder if she'll even have the decency to be embarrassed.


2nd Update: Some commenters have pointed out that there is dispute about Deryk being "kicking guy", so for now, that's up for debate. That hardly mitigates the other news about his MySpace, and the sickness it would seem to indicate.