http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...C1435953.story



This black girl will spent 7 years in prison because she pushed someone.

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Shaquanda Cotton
Jackson Correctional Complex,
Unit 2, Dorm 4
P.O. Box 872
Brownwood, Texas 76804
1125308


Contact the Judge

Honorable M.C. (Chuck) Superville, Jr., Judge
Lamar County Courthouse
119 North Main
Paris, TX 75460
Phone # 903-737-2410
Fax # 903-785-3858


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Office of the Governor Fax: (512) 463-1849

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Austin, Texas 78711-2428

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PARIS, Texas -- The public fairgrounds in this small east Texas town look ordinary enough, like so many other well-worn county fair sites across the nation. Unless you know the history of the place.

There are no plaques or markers to denote it, but several of the most notorious public lynchings of black Americans in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries were staged at the Paris Fairgrounds, where thousands of white spectators would gather to watch and cheer as black men were dragged onto a scaffold, scalded with hot irons and finally burned to death or hanged.

Brenda Cherry, a local civil rights activist, can see the fairgrounds from the front yard of her modest home, in the heart of the "black" side of this starkly segregated town of 26,000. And lately, Cherry says, she's begun to wonder whether the racist legacy of those lynchings is rebounding in a place that calls itself "the best small town in Texas."

"Some of the things that happen here would not happen if we were in Dallas or Houston," Cherry said. "They happen because we are in this closed town. I compare it to 1930s."

There was the 19-year-old white man, convicted last July of criminally negligent homicide for killing a 54-year-old black woman and her 3-year-old grandson with his truck, who was sentenced in Paris to probation and required to send an annual Christmas card to the victims' family.

There are the Paris public schools, which are under investigation by the U.S. Education Department after repeated complaints that administrators discipline black students more frequently, and more harshly, than white students.

And then there is the case that most troubles Cherry and leaders of the Texas NAACP, involving a 14-year-old black freshman, Shaquanda Cotton, who shoved a hall monitor at Paris High School in a dispute over entering the building before the school day had officially begun.

The youth had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor--a 58-year-old teacher's aide--was not seriously injured. But Shaquanda was tried in March 2006 in the town's juvenile court, convicted of "assault on a public servant" and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years, until she turns 21.

Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of arson for burning down her family's house, to probation.

"All Shaquanda did was grab somebody and she will be in jail for 5 or 6 years?" said Gary Bledsoe, an Austin attorney who is president of the state NAACP branch. "It's like they are sending a signal to black folks in Paris that you stay in your place in this community, in the shadows, intimidated."

Le Moor,

This has been hot news here. The African American girl got some bad advice. She was offered 2 years probation and her mother turned it down. According to the law she had to have a jury trial and the minimum sentence is what she received 7 years. Never ever take a jury trial over a plea bargain. You will always get much more time if you do. According to the law she did assault the teacher. However, I think if I would have beenthe teacherI would have used a bit of discretion and just talk to the girl instead of taking it this far.

ac9311 wrote:
Ok.......Still seems an injustice though. Maybe its the law which needs addressing then becos doing 7 yrs for pushing someone cannont be right.

Theres still the issue about Texas as well. Would a white accussed in identicalcircumstances recieved the "minimum" sentence.

Mother is dumb if ac9311 is correct

2 years probation would be wiped out when she becomes an adult

Sentence still unbeleivable though. That teacher must be a real 'jobsworth'. And a racist

I don't disagree. like I said I would have handled it differently. The law is very flawed and racist. There is no love loss between blacks and whites here. They hate us and we hate them plain as that.

But believe it or not, there have been white people who have gone to jail for the similar things. And their parents are on the news with their attorneys vowing to fight the system.

In that young girls case, this won't stick. She has never had any problems in or our of school. TheDistrict Attorney will be forced to change his decision.

Alocal Dallas radio station 97.9 is broadcasting from there this week.Their link is below, maybe you can listen in as they cover it.

They are bringing alot ofwell deserved attention to her situation. Some high priced lawyer will take the case pro bono just for the publicity. As things progress, I will post them.



http://www.979thebeat.com/home.asp

Seven years for pushing someone???? thats disgrasceful!, She should'nt have pushed the teacher but this is just too much.

@ Melissa

No it wouldnt

It wouldn't?

In that case the mums an idiot.....

@ Le Moor

You never saw this? http://www.blackchat.co.uk/theblackf...m35/27722.html

Melissa wrote: