GOOD NEWS: Jena 6 Case Finally Ends

The infamous Jena 6 case is over. MadProfessah has followed this case for years, which was another example of what many viewed as a racially influenced prosecution.

Carwin Jones, Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis and Theo Shaw pleaded no contest to misdemeanor simple battery and were sentenced to seven days probation and fined $500 plus court costs. The 6th member, Mychal Bell, was previously sentenced to 18 months in jail on a separate second-degree battery charge.

The main organization that publicized the case was ColorofChange.org, who released this statement on Friday:

ColorOfChange.org said Friday that the plea deal marked in acknowledgement by officials that the Louisiana justice system initially treated the then-teenage boys too harshly, privileging white students’ accounts of a schoolyard fight over those of black students in the largely segregated town of Jena.

“Today’s plea deal shows that the original charges in the case were unfair and vastly overblown,” said James Rucker, ColorOfChange.org’s executive director. “The story of the Jena 6 was an extreme example of what can happen when a justice system biased against black boys operates unchecked. But it’s also an example of what can happen when hundreds of thousands of people across the country stand up to challenge unequal justice. Together, we drew the country’s attention to this case and raised the money necessary to fund a strong legal defense.”

ColorOfChange.org, the first national organization involved in supporting the Jena 6, was instrumental in drawing national attention to the case, working alongside local activists in Jena and black bloggers across the country to spread word of the excessive charges and the story behind them.

More than 300,000 ColorOfChange.org members signed petitions to elected officials, urging that the charges be dropped and that then-Governor Kathleen Blanco intervene. The group organized more than 10,000 of its members to march in Jena on September 20, 2007. The same day, thousands of members in over 150 cities across the country held rallies and vigils and distributed flyers about the case; they also made more than 6,000 phone calls to public officials in Louisiana.

ColorOfChange members also contributed more than $275,000 toward high-quality legal teams, which succeeded in getting a biased judge removed from the cases and ultimately achieved today’s victory.

Courtesy Jack and Jill Politics, some pictures of the freed guys: