Guards acquitted on boot camp death

Culture & Society Forum

Cant see how in the hell they have been cleared and surely a jury should be mixed race. They were cleared because Anderson had sickle cell that is brought on by physical stress well getting beaten and dragged round a courtyard sounds like physical stress if you ask me. Hopefully somebody will order a retrial ( does the supreme court do this) can't the governemnt order a review of the finding?

Also I wa led to belive that this was racially motivated but can it be racially motivated when there was at least one black guard handing out the beatdown as well?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071012...OPxfl8NQmSs0NUE

Two things:

1) They were cleared because the DA's office botched the job. They offered medical testimony that was uncorroborated by the video and the medical "report". I guess you could share the blame with the coroner.

2) I can't find any case law on this yet so I'll edit my comment when I do, but there is such a thing as same-race hate crimes. They are rarely committed and even rarer prosecuted, but I know there have been 2-3 cases. The attacker's race is not actually part of the criteria when determining a hate crime, although this is a BIG loophole and again, rarely used.

So can I just get this straight not only are going to mentuion race but also drag Scotland into evrything when in fact you know nothing about Scotland, little tip if you don't know don't talk about it.

Anyway I agree that this is an outrage and I would hope that there is a situation like we have in the UK where the government can ask for a review.

What I would ask you is this - is it a racial crime if a black man was involved in dishing out the beating?

Malcom, I agree there was some injustice here, but it's not the all-white Jury thing and generalizations about a county are not the right choices of action. No, the cops won't go to jail, but trust me the mother has an extremely strong wrongful death civil suit I guarantee she will win (they already filed this suit). I'm usually pro-D.A. but this time the lack of one involved will be highly beneficial to her. All parties involved will not walk away clean from this, and the fact that anyone here has even heard of the issue is proof that there is media attention.