If this is true, this case may go beyond excessive charges -- but a student totally railroaded. I have posed my questions below and just wanted to know what you all think?
Friends of Justice
Ineffective Assistance of Counsel: What Blane Williams should have known
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:47 am ("civil rights", Jena)
Reflections in the wake of the Mychal Bell trial
Partisan witnesses
* The ten student witnesses who testified at Mychal Bell’s trial were all white. In fact, most of them were part of a distinct minority within
the high school’s white student population who attended all-white schools in the country surrounding Jena until High School. (More on this below)
* Justin Cooper was the only witness at trial to testify that Mychal Bell kicked Justin Barker as the victim lay unconscious on the ground.
Since Justin Cooper was one of the boys who admitted to hanging the nooses at Jena High School at the beginning of the school year, he can hardly be seen as an objective or credible witness. Defense Attorney Blane Williams was apparently unaware of Cooper’s connection to the noose incident.
* Jessica Hooter was one of four trial witnesses who identified Mychal as the person who threw the first punch at Justin Barker. Two days after the assault occurred, Jessica was unable to identify the initial attacker. But as she explained at trial, “After I thought about it more, I remembered more.” In his closing remarks, Blane Williams never mentioned that she had embellished her earlier testimony. Perhaps he forgot.
* The single male juror graduated from High School with Justin Barker’s father. The tendency to sympathize with an old school buddy whosekid got punched and kicked in a one-sided assault is understandable. It also makes objectivity impossible.
* Midway through the trial, assault victim Justin Barker and his family were seen by ten witnesses (myself included) sharing a convivial meal with several of the students who had testified against Mychal Bell. This suggests that a number of “memory-enhancing” conversations about the incident have taken place between early December and late June. Jessica Hooter likely “remembered” that the unidentified attacker was Mykal Bell because this quickly became the orthodox story in the social circle she move in.
Ms. Martin’s list
* At trial, special education teacher Kristy Martin listed off the names of the boys who surrounded Justin Barker as if they were clear in her memory. Although she was forced to admit that she never saw a single student touch Justin Barker, Martin’s ability to name names seemed very convincing. Martin is the only witness thus far who has provided a list of attackers longer than three names.
* In a written statement, given immediately after the incident, Coach Wayne Spence states that he was taking names of rowdy students in the gym during the lunch hour. “I had a list that Ms. Martin obtained from me,” he wrote. This suggests that Kristy Martin specifically asked Spence for the list of names the day of the fight. This explains why she is the only witness to remember more than two or three members of the Jena 6. Most eye witnesses can’t identify a single assailant by name. Most of the students who gave eyewitness statements after the December 4 altercation at the school make references to “a bunch of black kids”.
The witness no one called
* Coach Benjy Lewis gave two statements immediately after the school incident in which he clearly states that Justin Barker was facing him when Malcolm Shaw (not Mychal Bell) struck Barker from behind. “I saw Malcolm Shaw hit Justin Barker with his right fist to the right side of Justin’s head, right around the temple,” Lewis wrote. “Justin went down face first, knocked out . . .” Most witnesses agree that a single punch knocked Barker out cold. The only adult who witnessed the punch says Mychal Bell didn’t throw it.
* In a signed statement given immediately after the altercation at the school, student Jesse Beard stated that moments after the assault Coach Manning asked him where Malcolm Shaw was.
* It isn’t hard to see why the prosecution didn’t call Lewis to the stand (his testimony would have devastated the state’s case); but how do we explain why defense attorney Blane Williams didn’t call the coach to testify?
* Several people (myself included) noticed Mychal Bell repeatedly handing his attorney pieces of eyewitness testimony during the trial. This suggests that Williams entered the courtroom utterly unprepared for trial.
The green jacket theory
* Two female students testified that the person who knocked Justin Barker cold was wearing a green jacket. Mychal Bell’s statement, given immediately after the incident, suggests that he was initially cleared of responsibility because he was wearing a black jacket. At trial, the “green jacket” witnesses were convinced that Mychal Bell was not the attacker-they knew Mychal and the guy in the green jacket was someone else.
* The “green jacket” identification means that we have at least three mutually contradictory eyewitness accounts of who struck Justin Barker: Mychal Bell, Malcolm Shaw, or an unidentified student in a green jacket.
* Both “green jacket” witnesses insist that Justin Barker was knocked cold, not by a punch to the temple, but by having his head slammed into a concrete bench. Coach Benjy Lewis says that Justin Barker was knocked cold from a punch from behind. Witnesses who name Mychal Bell as the attacker describe a face-to-face confrontation followed by a blow to the head that knocked Justin Barker out. Defense attorney Blane Williams never reflected on the evidence long enough to identify these obvious contradictions.
If Lewis is right; Bell is innocent
* The fact that Justin Barker cannot remember who hit him argues in favor of Coach Lewis’s blow-from-behind account. It must also be remembered that Lewis was the only adult who directly witnessed the assault. He was also the only non-partisan eye witness. If Lewis is telling the truth, the witnesses who identify Mychal Bell as the initial attacker are either confused or, like Jessica Hooter, they are victims of a false sense of concreteness produced by the continual retelling the story in the company of partisan friends.
* Most of the prisoners recently exonerated on the basis of unassailable DNA evidence were wrongfully convicted by confident
eyewitnesses. Memory doesn’t work like a photograph; recollections change dramatically with time. We often see what we want to see.
* All this contradictory evidence makes it impossible to identifyJustin Barker’s assailant with any confidence.
* All those identifying Mychal Bell were highly partisan observers clearly identified with one side of a longstanding and unresolved feud
between the “country” white students who hung the nooses in a tree at the high school and the black male athletes who were particularly outraged by this hate crime (see more on this below).
* On balance, the most persuasive testimony by far comes from Coach Lewis-and neither the prosecution nor the defense called Lewis to testify at Mychal Bell’s trial.
A chaotic scene
* In signed statements, several black and white eyewitnesses referred to students running to and from the scene of the assault. Justin Barker was clearly struck on the face and then intentionally kicked while he lay on the ground. However, it is impossible to determine which of Justin Barker’s bruises and abrasions were the result of intentional assault and which may have been the unintentional result of a panic-induced stampede. All witnesses agree that the scene was utterly chaotic with students moving wildly in every direction. Defense attorney Blane Williams never raised this obvious question.
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