J'Accuse!

J'Accuse! - Gesundheit!

JENA, La. - A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy is back in jail after a judge revoked his probation because of an old drug charge that had never been tried, his father said Thursday.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers had been accused of beating a white classmate, had gone to juvenile court expecting another routine hearing, Marcus Jones said.

"He's locked up again," Jones said. "No bail has been set or nothing. He's a young man who's been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it."

Anazing, "thrown in jail again and again" and we have no clue why. I mean, what a surprise. It's so confusing that this would happen.

OK, I know the kids were overcharged in the beginning. But that's what prosecutors do; they overcharge in order to get the guilty to plead to a lesser charge. It may be a flawed system, but that's how it works. They'll charge the people in the car with you if you don't admit that it was your dope. If you don't want to plead guilty to the car you stole, they'll charge you with assaulting the officer as well. It's hardball.

I know I'm just looking for trouble by asking, but do you think that maybe, just maybe, a plan could be formulated to beat this system that is grinding this young man down? Maybe something clever, something the police and prosecutors would never expect: maybe something like staying away from drugs, and not running with "friends" who do crimes? Just an idea.

You want to beat the criminal justice system, quit being a criminal.