Questions Raised in Jailing of Jena 6's Mychal Bell

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Howard Witt,  the Southwest Bureau Chief of the Chicago Tribune, was recently interviewed by the Dallas South Blog, an interview posted here at NowPublic.

Howard Witt has been in the forefront of reporting on the way the legal system has been working in small southern towns, as in the case of the Jena 6 and Shaquanda Cotton, a 14 year old African American girl in Paris, Texas who was sent to prison for shoving a hall monitor at her high school.

Mr. Witt's article reports:

".... Shaquanda had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor was not seriously injured. Yet the teenager was convicted in March 2006 of assault and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years.

An excerpt from Howard Witt's latest article concerning the decision to jail Mychal Bell:

Other experts on Louisiana's juvenile laws said that (Judge) Mauffray's decision to jail Bell on the earlier charges appeared to run counter to the state's juvenile statutes.

Mr. Witt's most recent article on the Jena 6 can be found here.