Cross-Burning Penalty Appealed

[Judi Lynn]

Cross-Burning Penalty Appealed
Justice Dept.'s Civil Rights Chief Argues for Stiffer Sentence
By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 24, 2004; Page A06


The Justice Department yesterday sought a tougher sentence for a North Carolina man convicted of a cross burning who eluded prison time after a federal judge found that he had been provoked into the act. Justice Department prosecutors said they fear that if the ruling stands, other defendants in hate crime cases will attempt to argue that they were goaded into their acts.

The case prompted an unusual appearance in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in Richmond by R. Alexander Acosta, head of the Justice Department's civil rights division, who argued that Robert Nelson May's sentence should not have been reduced. Acosta was joined at the hearing by U.S. Attorney Robert J. Conrad Jr. of Charlotte. (snip)

Conrad's nomination as a federal judge has been blocked since May by Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), a Democratic presidential candidate. Conrad is perhaps best known as the Justice Department official who recommended a special counsel to investigate the fundraising activities of Vice President Al Gore in 2000. He was overruled by then-Attorney General Janet Reno. A spokesman said Edwards is still considering Conrad's record.

The case bears similarities to one involving Charles W. Pickering Sr., who as a federal judge in Mississippi in 1994 reduced the sentence of a man who burned a cross near the home of an interracial couple. Pickering's nomination as an appeals court judge was blocked by Senate Democrats, but the Bush administration defended his actions in that case. President Bush bypassed senators last week and installed Pickering in a recess appointment.

In the case at issue yesterday, May was accused along with an accomplice of erecting a cross 20 feet from the home of an interracial couple in Gastonia, N.C., and setting it on fire in 1999. Prosecutors said the pair sat in lawn chairs drinking beer while the cross burned and had previously taunted the African American victim by using a racial epithet that they also wrote on a sign tacked to a tree.
(snip/...)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43074-2004Jan23.html?nav=hptoc_n

[dfong63]

1. similar cases, except that

... in the former case, Pickering (Bush's judicial nominee) argued for reducing the penalty for a cross-burning; whereas in the latter case, Conrad (Bush's judicial nominee) is arguing AGAINST the reduced penalty. ie, it appears that Conrad is playing a role that is opposite to that played by Pickering.

[DerBeppo]

2. not quite the same

in this case, the judge is arguing for increasing the sentence on the person who actually committed the cross burning whereas pickering reduced the sentence on someone who drove the cross burners to and from the site.

[salin]

3. omg... provocation?

these guys sat in the yard with beer and watched their work (the cross burning)... and the judge rules that the perps were... "victims" ala provocation... because the perps suspected the man of the household of burglary and 'firing guns'. Ah - so the judge believes in vigilanti terrorism.