Tha Artivist Presents...  

"We Are Resolute..." SleptOn Mag Founders Billy Buntin and Kevin Smith; R & B Sensation Nyasha Fox

"We Are Resolute..." Special Guests: 2008 Green Party U.S. Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney, Louise Linzy and Rev. Lennox Yearwood of the Hip Hop Caucus

Former Georgia U.S. Congresswoman and subject of the feature film documentary American Blackout Cynthia McKinney is convinced that she is the best person to be the next President of the United States…

And she hopes that the Green party, the party that made Ralph Nader their Presidential candidate in 2000, agrees….

She is an African American at a time when Barack Obama is gathering headlines and winning primaries…She is a woman when Hilary Clinton is making a strong case and impressive run at the White House…In essence she is, at least this political season, the best of both worlds…

“I think this is very special time for our people, community and country”, said an enthusiastic and upbeat McKinney…”This is the time we got to do something different in order to get something different” a phrase which McKinney adopted as the battle cry for her candidacy…

McKinney believes that Black America is in a state of emergency and that the powers that be are not doing enough to find solutions....”There is a community in the United States that is in pain, that is suffering and the political process is not addressing that pain”…McKinney concluded that power doesn’t give up anything without a demand and that change must come through people demanding the right to be heard by exercising and protecting their right to vote…”There are remedies and options available, but we can’t have them if we don’t press the political will to make these changes in public policy happen…It’s high time that the votes of Black People are counted and treated with dignity and respect”…

McKinney feels that Blacks being shut out of the U.S. economy has had a terrible effect on the stability of the Black family unit…"Well I think it is very clear considering what has happened with the erosion of the quality of life being experienced by Black people in this country...The NY Times ran a story that nearly 50% all of the Black men from ages 18-64 in the City of New York were unemployed…What was the public policy response to provide for jobs for these men who will become fathers and stakeholders in families???"

She also commented that homeownership or lack of for Blacks is another crisis issue… “When it comes to homeownership United For A Fair Economy told us that it would take 1600 years to close the racial disparity between home ownership rates between Black people and White people if nothing else is done to change the public policy…We have to do more…We can’t wait and shouldn’t be asked to wait for fairness, equality and justice”…

McKinney hopes that her candidacy more than anything helps to “spark the kind of attention that will attract young people” and start a political action movement among those of the Hip Hop generation…”I see so much talent with our young people and the challenge now is to channel that talent into expanding opportunities”…Rev. Yearwood , the leader of the Hip Hop Caucus, a high profile national youth political activism organization, agrees with McKinney’s sentiments…”She sincerely believes in Black people, in the Hip Hop Generation…She understands that the Hip Hop Generation is the new Civil rights Generation for the 21st Century”…

Many see McKinney’s return to the National Political Arena as a welcomed breath of fresh air…”There is no question that Cynthia McKinney's return to national politics and her ambitious run for the presidential nomination is a good thing for the Green Party, for the American people and black people in particular,” stated Billy Buntin co-founder and co-editor of the popular political webzine SleptOn Magazine…Rev. Yearwood praised McKinney for her political courage and selflessness by noting that “she puts her life on the line, she puts her body on the line and she puts all of her convictions on the line to put forth a message of truth and power”…

Some people feel that McKinney will be used to take votes away from Barack Obama if he gets the Democratic party’s nomination for U.S. President…”That issue comes up a lot because people would rather believe the hype than trust the facts”, noted McKinney…

She compares the supposed scenario to that of 2000 Green Party Nominee Ralph Nader who was accused of costing Al Gore the election in 2000…”In the absence of integrity in the system for Black voters no one can say that Ralph Nader of the Green party spoiled the election, the spoilers of the election were the people who didn’t fight for the integrity of the Black voters …Certainly not somebody who participates in the process, who provides choice for voters…How could anyone every say that that person spoil the election and spoil our democracy??? I don’t think that the people who participate in the process honestly should be considered spoilers”…

Many of McKinney’s Supporters believe that the mainstream media goes out of their way to distort the true character of Cynthia McKinney…According to Rev. Yearwood “perception is reality” and further added “she’s fighting against very powerful people and corporations who control the media…Like Malcolm X said they can make the innocent look guilty”…In addition to have had “endured libelous dominant ‘mainstream’ media campaigns” against her Buntin stated that “Cynthia's name invokes fear and ridicule among establishment political pundits and parties as a result of her audacious willingness to question the legitimacy of American imperialism, Israeli occupation and the incestuous government/corporate relationship”.

Rev. Yearwood believes that in spite of the outcome, McKinney’s campaign will not be in vain…”Regardless if she gets one vote or one million votes, she is trying to make government more transparent particularly when the speaking of that is so muted in our times…It is still so good to hear that God is still producing prophets and prophetess who can go out there and proclaim the good news that the oppressed will one day stand up and those who are the oppressors will one day fall down”…

Our Featured Guest Sunday January 13, 2008...


The subject of the critically acclaimed featured film documentary American Blackout http://www.americanblackout.org/ and crusading former U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia shares with us the reasons why she is running for head of state and the reasons why we, The American People, should support her!!!

To learn more about Cynthia McKinney and her Presidential campaign please go to the following websites: http://www.runcynthiarun.org/ and http://www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com

Other Featured Guests:



The first female police officer in Tunica County, MS history a.k.a. the "richest" county in Misisssippi  and recent candidate to become the first African American woman judge in Tunica County history...She will be talking about her recent experiences running for judge and being a public servant...Exclusive interview.

http://tri-statedefenderonline.com/articlelive/articles/2438/1/Election-letdown-in-Tunica-County/Page1.html

As Always Please Spread The Good News!!!

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Check Out The 2007 R2C2H2 Winter Newsletter:
http://weallbe.blogspot.com/2007/11/2007-r2c2h2-winter-newsletter.html

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Check Out "The Empowerment Hour" Hosted By Bro. Kermit Eady Every Saturday @ 6 PM EST/ 5PM CST

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/EadyAssociates

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Marcus Jones (left), father of Jena 6 defendant Mychal Bell, Rev. Al Sharpton and Melissa Bell, Mychal Bell’s mother. (AP Photo)

The Jena 6 case and what it represents has become a lightning rod for activism as well as divisiveness...Rarely does such a topic or subject garners such a strong response from everyone…Whether you agree or disagree we all can agree that the Jena 6 case has revealed that it takes time for old wounds to heal and that open and honest dialogue is key if we are as a community going to get to the heart of the problem and find solutions…

For this article we approached some of the brightest, most engaging and opinionated minds around...Each person asked for their insight represents a clear demographic of our society whether it be academic, the media, religious or the community in general…Vanderbilt University Law Professor Carol Swain, Louisiana Civil Rights Activist and Marcus Jones’ Spiritual Advisor Bishop George and noted Civil Rights journalist Gary Younge each weighed in with their worthy insight…Their distinct voices and opinions represent the spectrum of Black America…As the old saying goes we can all agree to disagree but respect is key if you expect reciprocity…


Renowned Law Prof. Carol Swain thought that the plea bargain was probably the best deal Mychal Bell could have gotten from a legal point of view when you consider his previous juvenile record and participation in the beating of Justin Barker…”I assume that his criminal attorney had access to his juvenile records and that played a part in his plea bargain…He was guilty of being a part of the attack on the white student, maybe the plea bargain will prevent the media from probing into his juvenile record…But had he been tried and evidence come forward, he probably could have gotten a stiffer sentence and it came down to what was best for him…And usually it is better in cases where you are guilty to get a better deal by plea bargaining…”

She also recognizes that the U.S. justice system is biased towards poor people as well as people of color in particular Black Males…”I think the justice system hurts all poor people…If you can’t afford an expensive lawyer, one that’s going to work on your behalf at an hourly wage then you are at a disadvantage regardless of your race…I think it also does affect disproportionately Black men because many of them are poor…”

She also confessed sympathy for Mychal Bell and the media scrutiny that is individually upon him as well as a member of the Jena 6…”I hate to be him because everything he does he’s going to be watched and if you look at what has leaked into the press about his prior record he has not been a choir boy and he may very well end up in trouble again…”

Prof. Swain stated that that type of media attention can also bring out the best and the worst in people in the general public…”There are people that are rooting for him to get on with his life, go to college and be successful, but there are also other people waiting and biding their time to see when he gets into trouble again…I think he’s in a very awkward situation because of the high profile of the case…”

She also offered some words of advice for Mychal Bell and his parents post-plea bargain…”If Mychal Bell has an anger management problem he needs to get help for it…And if his parents can afford to relocate I think that might help them as far as to get a new start and not be constantly reminded by the past…”

However, she does feel that the boys should be punished for their actions and not let off the hook so easily by their Black supporters…”I think that at the end of the day we are all accountable for what we do…The Jena 6 boys did a gang beating on one individual and were sort of celebrated in the community…I think that we should have condemned the attack more harshly then we did because they were involved in doing something that they were not suppose to be doing and separate that from the penalty…”

Prof. Swain also felt that the Black community can show love and support for the boys while at the same time holding them accountable for what they actually did…”The charges they were charged with were severe but at the same time they had no business ganging up and beating one person in the way that they did and that should have been the first thing we as a community condemned to send a signal to other Black young people that this is unacceptable behavior…”

She also noted that there’s an alarming growing trend of violent young Black males running in gangs or packs throughout the nation…”I heard of several cases like that of these young black men traveling in packs and attacking single, lone individuals and that’s not right… There’s no respect of self or other people and we need to be the ones saying that and holding them accountable and not celebrating and defending them because they are not innocent…”

Prof. Swain thought that Mychal Bell in spite of all he’s been through did deserve to serve some time and she hopes that through his incarceration he’s gained some wisdom...”Mychal Bell deserves to serve some time…And I hope he stays out of trouble and I hope he learned his lesson…At the end of the day Mychal Bell was doing something he shouldn’t have been doing…”

Prof. Swain noted that the Jena 6 case struck an emotional chord because it hit so close to home…Her brother was a victim of an attack that was eerily similar to the one endured by Justin Barker, however he wasn’t so lucky…”I had a brother that was attacked by five boys mid afternoon, they were boys from the neighborhood and I am sure he knew them…They beat him using their fists, shoes and kicked him and he took a blow to the head…He managed to get home and fell into a coma and died that evening…”

Because of this family tragedy she does admit she has a bias against the defendants in the case…”That sorta of colors my view about whether or not a sneaker can be a deadly weapon, the youngest boy was 14 and there was five of them…All I know is that we got to do something about these conditions…It’s not morally right…”

Prof. Swain believes that Black self-help is the remedy for the moral epidemic the Black community is facing…“I come from the underclass and I have been exposed to a lot…I am very concerned about the choices a lot of my people, Black people, make and some of our problems are our own fault and I do see them as our youth and our problem because I don’t think that society won’t do anything else but put them in jail… “


Bishop George stated the plea bargain caught many of the grassroots Jena 6 supporters off guard…”Honestly the plea bargain was a surprise to everyone…It was something that occurred in relation to Mychal himself or anybody locked up at some point that they are going to want to be free”…

Bishop George also felt that everything began to feel orchestrated and suspect as if this was preplanned conspiracy…“The plea bargain caused a lot of things to begin to happen such as a suit being filed by the Barker family against Mychal Bell and his parents…The other family members and members of the Jena 6 have been served suits for damages concerning the incident…It was as if everyone was waiting for one of the boys to plead guilty…”

He also noted that the Jena 6 case and the Mychal Bell plea bargain is nothing but a microcosm of what’s going on in the rest of the United States…”This is a process that’s going on all over the United States where young people plea bargain and their plea bargaining their lives away…There seems to be a trend all of a sudden where plea deals are coming up and my experience is when there is a plea somebody gets free and that didn’t happen and hasn’t happen as of yet with Mychal Bell…”

Echoing the sentiments of Marcus Jones, Bishop George also felt that Mychal Bell and his parents were mislead by the conditions of the plea bargain…”His mother is upset because it was the understanding that he was going to be moved from a secured facility to a atmosphere that wasn’t jail like…From what I understand things were misconstrued in Mychal’s mind about what was going to happen and what was not going to happen…”

Bishop George also noted the absurdity of the actual plea bargain as well…”There’s a lot of things concerning the plea that has taken place, even the parents having to pay child support to the state until the young man is 18, this is a first… I asked some people about it in the system they say this has never been done before…This is ludicrous and with the adult trial being thrown out the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, he is being held illegally…”

Bishop George stated the reason why the Jena 6 case occurred in the first place was because of inequities in the LaSalle Parish judicial system when it comes to crime and punishment…"The issue is still about unequal justice… If Mychal Bell is going to receive 18 months for battery then the White perpetrators of the battery committed upon Robert Bailey Jr. need to also receive 18 months…Justin Barker had a weapon on the school campus after those incidents that occurred at the school leading up to the fight…There are a whole lot of discrepancies that are still left out there that are going have to be dealt with…”

He also feels that the La Salle Parish Court System has no respect for the actual law when it chooses to not follow the direct command of a higher court…”I consider it chicanery when the Louisiana State Supreme Court has an ad hoc judge come in and rule that the documents concerning Mychal Bell had to be opened and Judge Maffrey goes right ahead and seal those same records…And now Mychal has to go before the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.. Now that let anyone with common sense know that the court system in LaSalle Parish have a lot to hide because they are insistent on keeping those records shut down…”

Bishop George expressed sympathy for Mychal Bell’s parents…”The poor parents were left with court costs...Marcus Jones’ job, a job he had in Jena, he lost months ago and so the income that would be coming towards to pay for those things in the court will be coming from Melissa and whatever Marcus can come up with…There’s been some mis-information in the media…People are mistaken in alot of ways about the way things are going…”

However, he also expressed optimism about the outcome of the case…”The ball is where it is, but the ball is not dropped, there are going to be a pursuit of issues that are still outstanding…There are a lot of things that are still on the burner being dealt with concerning the case of Mychal Bell…”

Bishop George felt that the plea bargain was not a win/win for Mychal Bell…”I don’t think that there was anything that could be gained or garnered by Mychal admitting that he had a part in what occurred with Justin Barker… “

He also felt like Marcus Jones that the court of public opinion was in Mychal Bell’s favor and that the plea came as a shock and let down to many passionate supporters…”When you have upwards of 70,000 people come to a town to stand for justice and fight against unequal justice and get down to the wire and things are looking the way they are looking and you find a plea is made...That is something that everybody is trying to get their heads wrapped around…”

Bishop George also noted a coalition of the willing, a collection of civil rights organizations who made themselves the designated spearheads of the Jena 6 movement getting together just two weeks before the plea bargain to discuss the nuts and bolts of the Mychal Bell case...”There were some groups that entered into the Jena 6 case, Southern Poverty Law Center; Color of Change and Friends of Justice...These groups from the onset had been looking at trying to find some way to diffuse the entire situation”…The meeting took place in Alexandria, La...

He also noted key players in the Jena 6 case were present including Attorney Darrell Hickman (Bryant Ray Purvis’ attorney) and Mychal Bell’s Attorney Lewis Scott and the parents of the Jena 6 defendants…

The purpose of the meeting was to try to come up with some type of agreement among all the attorneys on how to help Mychal Bell’s parents with the money situation...As a court order they have to pay the monthly incarceration fees of their son…”This thing about a plea has been on the table for a period of time and they were trying to get all the parents to agree...The only two parents that weren’t in agreement were Marcus and Melissa…And some point the lawyers were persuaded that this was the appropriate way to go…”

According to Bishop George the plea bargain deal had unforeseen repercussions “and now what has happened with the suit lingering around, you are not going to get any of the young men to say yeah we had a part in that because that is an automatic payout if the suit is won by the Barkers...”

Bishop George feels that for the Jena 6 to get true justice and exoneration that the U.S. Federal Court must step in…“It’s a precarious situation that‘s going to have be settled in Federal Court…It’s can’t be settled in state court…Somebody’s going to have to have the unction and the junction to file something in the federal system and that’s going to change the whole parameters of this thing…Because there’s malfeasance that has occurred so it has to be dealt with in this manner…”

Award winning journalist Gary Younge also feels sympathy for Mychal Bell and his legal woes…”Well I can understand why he did it, my guess is that his counsel thought that was the best deal he was going to get… In a way I hope for Mychal Bell and the others that they get out of the criminal justice system as soon as they possibly can… If this was the quickest way they can do it then so be it…”

Younge also expressed genuine concern for the individual well being of Mychal Bell and his co-defendants and that this human element of the story shouldn’t be lost in the hustle and bustle sensationalism of the historic civil rights case…”I feel like you don’t want to grandstand with a young person’s future…It would be great if we could move on to other stuff while keeping an eye on the actual individuals involved...The fate of the individuals involved is important…”

He also feels that the Jena 6 case only further illustrates the institutional racism that is prevalent throughout the U.S….He also reasoned that the public must become vigilante in searching for the inequities in the U.S. judicial system and beyond…”What I also think needs to happen now is to take the light which is dimmed significantly but it was shown on Jena 6 and shine it elsewhere on the country where it’s happening all the time…”

He also said that 21st Century racism is more sophisticated and stealth or invisible and that nooses from the Jena 6 story was a throwback to a different era…”If it wasn’t for the nooses no one would have noticed Jena…It took some medieval Jim Crow acting out for people to sit up and listen…White people now don’t have to act out with nooses, crosses and stuff in order to be racist, but in order to catch the media’s attention they have to…”

He offered two examples of how racism has “evolved” and how the media has played a part in that evolution…”If someone came up to your house called you a nigger and burned a cross on the lawn that would make the news but if you worked in a big company and they say we’re firing three hundred people and two hundred are black then that won’t make the news…Somehow it has to be these dramatic and undeniable expressions of racism that makes the grade and that is not how racism works…”

“You have to be a very stupid white person to run around with nooses and crosses because you don’t have to do that to get what you want or to keep the stuff that you stole…”

Gary Younge also warned that if we don’t pay attention to the details that we may miss the big picture on the significance of the Jena 6 saga…“Jena was a symbol of a bigger problem and unless it’s regarded as a bigger problem then the general lesson has been lost…”

One of the most publicized civil rights cases in recent memory has garnered more scrutiny…On Dec. 3, 2007 the defense team for Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena 6 to face jail time and trial, avoided a possible 2nd media circus filled trial by taking a plea bargain…Although Mychal will be free in only a matter of months many questioned the decision made by his legal defense team as well as the motive…Opinions varied far and wide from those connected to the case to those who were made aware of the saga through the media and the wonders of modern technology…

Mychal Bell’s father Marcus Jones and Mychal’s lead Attorney Lewis Scott are the two most distinctive voices involved in this issue…Marcus Jones felt that his son was mislead by Attorney Scott and his legal defense team while Attorney Scott felt that the plea bargain he helped to engineer served the best interest and individual needs of his client…

Both of these men are passionate about what they believe in…Below both men are given space to tell the story of the plea bargain in their own words from their individual perspectives…

The jury is now the in the court of public opinion…Regardless of how one may feel there’s no denying that the Jena 6 saga is one of the most prominent civil rights sagas of the early 21st Century…The Jena 6 legacy and the interpretations of that legacy will have long term effects…The final verdict has yet to be given…


Attorney Scott felt very confident that the decision his team made on behalf of his client was the right one…”The charges we entered the plea on, Mychal had been convicted of those charges in adult court…The part related to the aggravated nature was dismissed, the conspiracy was dismissed and the plea was less than what he was charged with…We could have been battling this case for a couple of years but in the meantime he wasn’t getting any education and we didn’t want him to fall by the wayside…We wanted to take time and look at his well being specifically…”

According to Attorney Scott going to trial would not have stopped the lawsuit filed by Justin Barker and his family…”The plea bargain and the filing of the lawsuit really didn’t have anything to do with each other…It really would have been filed regardless because it was prepared for months…I had already spoke with the attorneys for the Barkers and I knew that was coming down the pipe anyway…”

Attorney Scott did not feel that the plea bargain was a cop out or let the town of Jena off the hook…”For people who are interested in civil rights they should realize that there are two separate issues…If we would have gone to trial and if he was convicted of the things that he entered the plea to, they would have considered that a cop out…For people who want to straighten out the system it takes a lot more…”

“Dealing with racism in Jena or anywhere else requires more than us just preceding to trial…Going to trial was not going to deal with the fact that the other young white men who have taken part in the various activities were not prosecuted…Going to trial was not going to make the school system protect the rights of the African American students who go to school there…Going to trial was not going to deal with all the problems… Those problems if people are really serious about it are going to have to be dealt with over a period of time...”

Attorney Scott also noted the tension that existed among Mychal Bell’s family over the plea bargain…”In reality I would have fought the case as long as my client would have wanted to fight it…However, in the situation we were in we talked to Mychal himself, Melissa (Mychal’s mom) and Marcus (father)…Melissa was very much in favor to the plea bargain, Mychal was in favor to entering the plea agreement but Marcus disagreed to it…”

“My role as representative of Mychal Bell was to represent Mychal Bell and to do things that was going to be in his best interest so he can have some certainty in his life and plan his life…He felt it to be in his best interest to continue his education and put this behind him…I sympathize with his father and if Mychal would have decided to continue to fight just as his father wanted to do then that’s what we would have been doing”…

Quite frankly Attorney Scott admitted that in terms of a civil rights case taking a plea was not the best option…“From a civil rights perspective it may have been better to probably fight the case throughout…However, the decision of a lawyer has to be based upon the needs of his client…For certain reasons I hated to enter into the plea agreement because we would have had a better chance of exposing all of the problems and difficulties especially with the judge and judicial system in the area”…


Attorney Scott alluded to Mychal Bell’s football background as a running back to convince his client he made the right decision…”You still have five other people, like I told Mychal you don’t have to be ashamed of the decision you make, you ran the ball, you advanced the ball a certain distance now somebody is going to have to run the ball for awhile…You been the one who have been taking a pounding and been incarcerated…You done your part…Keep your head up and go head finish your education…”

Attorney Scott said that the lawyer’s main concern should be the individual needs of his clients and not to offer his client up as ‘a sacrificial lamb for the cause’…”If you look back over history of the people that were involved in the high profile cases the individuals didn’t always turn out okay…When you had marquee defendants like the Scottsboro 9 or Wilmington 10, just because they fought the battles for a long time doesn’t mean that the individuals turned out okay…If you look at the Little Rock 9, alot of them turned out okay because they had the support of people on a personal basis and they weren’t considered as sacrifices…They were considered as human beings who had needs themselves and they were able to progress and achieve in life…”

“A lot of people never looked at Mychal’s individual needs because they wanted a sacrifice...They didn’t consider him as a young person who is 17 years old who still needs an education, parental nurturing, somebody who can explain to him the ins and outs, somebody who can counsel him, those are needs he still has…”

Attorney Scott offered the following words for those who still wanted to continue the fight against injustice and for the rest of the Jena 6:

“There’s still five young men…There’s still injustice in Jena and those who want to deal with injustice should not let this (plea bargain) stop them…Injustice can not be dealt with through one march or going to one city on one day, it has to be dealt with day in and day out…It has to be dealt with in the courtrooms as well as in the chambers of legislature, on our jobs and in our schools…It’s something people have to organize for rather than thinking it is something that can be dealt with on the spur of the moment…”




Marcus Jones the father of Mychal Bell to say the least is not satisfied with the plea bargain deal at all…”When I first heard about the plea bargain quite naturally I wasn’t for it…I told my son this…The whole puzzling thing is why my son’s lawyer would accept a plea bargain from the D.A….”

Marcus Jones thought the plea was in bad taste because he felt the momentum of public opinion shifting heavily in the favor of Mychal Bell and other Jena 6 defendants…”With all the resources that has been galvanized around my son, the resources that my son had with people wanting to help from Harvard Law School; Howard University; Southern University and law students that other universities had; the National Black Caucus taking a stand; Rev. Sharpton; Michael Baisden, all these people bringing all this to the forefront, bringing this light…”

So the question remains as Marcus Jones said…

“Why would they as Black men and a Black woman (legal defense team) sell my son out like that?”

Marcus Jones first and foremost wanted his son to have a fair trial after what he felt the first trial represented which was a mockery of the judicial system, but business as usual in Jena…”If he was a good lawyer he would have said we are not taking any plea deals, we are going to take my client to trial and we are going to have our day in court…I thought he took the case to fight for my son…I never said my son didn’t participate in the fight…My whole issue from day one was that it was an unequal justice here where whites got away with committing crimes and the D.A. were forcing the laws on Blacks for lesser or similar crimes…”

Marcus also had a problem with the way they were “maliciously prosecuting and maliciously incarcerating” his son from day one…Marcus cries of abuse of his son Mychal included “locking him up as a juvenile with adults, trying him as an adult and then dropping those charges 10 months later and sending him to juvenile…”

Marcus fears and beliefs were for better or worse validated when the 3rd Circuit Court came back with their ruling…”Then 3rd circuit court came back 10 months later and overturned it saying that the D.A. and the judge misused the law…It should have been in juvenile court from day one…That was a violation of what the judge and D.A. had done in the law...It seems like to me that the DOJ (U.S. Department of Justice) should have came in and removed them by locking them up or suspending them...”

Marcus was nevertheless elated and thought that Attorney Scott and his team will act immediately upon the news with immediate and positive results…Or so he thought…

“My son’s lawyer got the word from the 3rd Circuit Court that they were wrong for incarcerating my son, holding him as an adult when he should have been in juvenile custody, they violated his civil rights…Locked him up in a facility where he could not continue his education…It’s been so many violations and civil suits that should have been filed by my son’s lawyer but he never did…But at the time I had such confidence in my son’s lawyer that I thought he was really trying to defend my son in the right way and to the end…”

Marcus feels the motive was money for Attorney Scott’s seemingly betrayal of his client…”If somebody paid me for running a race and you paid me for running the race before I even run the race, whoever gave me the money to run the race you suddenly get burned because you should have paid me after I got through running the race and that’s how I view what my son’s lawyer has done here…The confidence that I had in my son’s lawyer, I really don’t understand why he done this…”

“When my son went to court on Nov. 6 for two motion hearings, for the double jeopardy thing and for no police report being done we knew that Judge Maffrey in Jena wasn’t going to rule in our favor anyway”…The reason for the hearings was to able to advance their cause to the 3rd Circuit Court…”He (Scott) said when you get out and people ask and interview you or anything push the issue they are trying to try your son twice for the same thing…”

Marcus was surprised to learn on November 29 that the legal team never filed in the 3rd Circuit Court…Frustrated and confused Marcus asked them why didn’t they file and Attorney Scott said that Peggy one of the other lawyers on the defense team wasn’t finished writing the writ…Marcus upon hearing this stated “wait a minute that’s been a whole month, there’s something wrong with this picture…”

According to Marcus when his son asked Attorney Scott for the reason for not filing in 3rd Circuit Court, Scott told him because the plea bargain deal became available…Marcus felt that Attorney Scott told his son a lie because his intent was to do the plea bargain all along…

Marcus believes that there was an arrangement between the Barker Family and his son’s lead lawyer Louis Scott in order to help the Barker’s lawsuit and that his son was going to be the sacrificial lamb…”Somebody had to be the fall guy for this…In order for the Barker Family to make this lawsuit they filed against us good it had to be by Dec. 4…They needed somebody to take the plea in order for the lawsuit to be good…So the timing of the plea is very suspect…”

“I try to tell his mother and Mychal don’t do it, but they were making these promises to my son by being out before Christmas and his birthday and my son still sitting in jail…Something is wrong with this picture…”

Marcus believes that the plea bargain also let down the true supporters of his son and of the rest of the Jena 6…”All that’s been done to help our people come together around my son’s wrongful incarceration...People went out on the limb to send and raise money to help defend my son…They didn’t send that money for no plea bargain...”

The terms of the plea bargain according to Marcus Jones are suspect as well…Terms of the plea included not being able to go back and appeal the plea; Marcus will continue to pay child support for Mychal until he is 18 (what does this have to do with the case?); the parents have to pay a portion of Mychal’s medical bill; any motion that they, being Mychal and his parents, filed against the judge and D.A. will have to be withdrawn and the parents will have to pay the court costs…”What lawyer in their right mind would agree for their client to take a plea bargain from a D.A. under those circumstances…That’s bad law practice…”


(Ron Herd II also known as R2C2H2 Tha Artivist hosts the internet radio show “Tha Artivist Presents...W.E. A.L.L. B.E. Radio” at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/weallbe . His Website is http://www.weallbe.blogspot.com... He is also the author of James Reese Europe: Jazz Lieutenant http://www.jazzlieutenant.blogspot.com)