Late yesterday, Governor Kathleen Blanco announced that LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters has decided NOT to appeal the Louisiana 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals' decision to throw out the conviction of one of the Jena 6, Mychal Bell, because he was a minor at the time he was arrested, and should never have been charged as an adult.
This is the right result in this case to date. All of the young men, if tried, should be tried in the juvenile system, for their actions. If they did in fact beat up on this white kid, they should be punished for their actions.
Based on everything that I've heard, there should be a concerted effort by whomever wins the Attorney General's race next month to ensure that there is one system of justice for Louisiana, not two. I say this because one of the incidents in the run-up to the beating given to that white student involved another white male pulling a shotgun on three black males in front of a convenience store. The black youths wrestled the gun away, and the DA charged the youths with aggravated battery and theft of a shotgun! For more info on this, please visit Pursuing Holiness and AfroSpear.
For more on this story, please visit CenLamar, which has a well-sourced compendium of everything that happened in the Jena 6 case up to August 2nd, and this post here on Daily Kingfish, by CenLamar, detailing every since that point, as well as Pursuing Holiness, which has done a bang-up job keeping up with all the twists and turns in the case.
Over a month ago, CenLamar featured a compendium of information on the case of the Jena Six. Since then, the compendium has been widely circulated and read. Throughout the past month, however, the story has taken many turns, and recently, charges were reduced to a lesser offense against four of the five young men who were initially charged with attempted second degree murder (the sixth is being tried in juvenile court).
Here in Central Louisiana, the case of the Jena Six continues to be a contentious issue. According to the results of an unscientific poll released by The Town Talk, a vast majority of respondents (over 70%) believe the charges are adequate (and this was conducted BEFORE the District Attorney decided to reduce charges against at least three of the defendents).
Lest a reader from outside of Central Louisiana conclude that these results are indicative of the local impression regarding this case, I caution that the poll was conducted online, and it enabled a single person to vote multiple times. It is easy to see the potential for abuse. Certainly, however, the community remains divided.
When Reverend Jesse Jackson arrived in Jena a week ago, the local reaction, at least online, was mixed. Many people have argued that the imposition of race as a factor in this case has obscured attention away from the crime itself, a fight in which six young men allegedly beat up one young man. They assert that the nature of the crime (six versus one) justifies a harsh penalty. Many have attempted to remove race altogether, retelling the story as somehow “race neutral.”
Since late December of 2006, the quiet town of Jena, Louisiana has been the subject of intense media scrutiny. The story of the Jena Six has made national and international headlines, causing many to ask serious and important questions about the present-day realities of racism in Louisiana. CenLamar has been covering the tensions in Jena, Louisiana even before the now-infamous Jena Six incident, when the main academic building of Jena High School was set on fire on November 30, 2006. Less than a week later, the now-infamous Jena Six incident occured.
This is intended to be a resource for anyone interested in learning about the Jena Six, and it is offered with the sincere hope that all Louisianans, both black and white, Republican and Democrat, will recognize this injustice and demand equal treatment for all under the law.
Ryan of The Daily Kingfish provided a synopsis, courtesy of Pursuing Holiness. For the purposes of clarity, this is the full recapitulation provided by Pursuing Happiness:
Cross-posted from 
