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Racial
profiling | "Gangsta"
Profiling | Willie Upshaw | The Clayton Miller story:
when cops go heavy on kids
Lionel Tate
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Black
crime problem muddled by racism, denial
By Cynthia Tucker, December
15, 2003
ATLANTA - The judges of a Florida
appeals court could see the boy in the black man-child, the recklessness
in the kid who loved TV wrestling, the testosterone-fueled stupidity
in an otherwise harmless preteen. They didn't see a hardened
killer.
So they reversed the conviction
of Lionel Tate, who was just 12 years old when he was accused
of murder in the death of his 6-year-old playmate, Tiffany Eunick.
Although there was no evidence that Lionel meant to kill Tiffany,
a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced
to life in prison. The appeals court restored a semblance of
common sense to a travesty of justice.
But it hardly solved the larger
problem - the impossibly complex conundrum - of black men and
crime. It is a contentious and difficult issue, a bramble of
stereotypes, prejudice, ignorance, fear and paranoia. It involves
the frustrating tendency of the criminal justice system to persecute
black men, as well as the depressing fact that black men commit
a disproportionate share of the nation's homicides.
Even as black men such as E.
Stanley O'Neal, Richard Parsons and Colin L. Powell have risen
to the highest ranks of business and diplomacy, America continues
to stereotype black men as dangerous predators. It does not matter
how well-dressed, well-educated or well-mannered they are; black
men have grown accustomed to routine stop-and-frisks by police
officers, to being bypassed by cab drivers, to being glared at
by white women who find themselves sharing a lonely elevator.
The stereotyping of black men,
which harkens back to the earliest days of American slavery,
helps explain the harsh treatment of Lionel Tate and the disproportionate
number of black men in prison, as well as the increasing numbers
of black men released from prison after years spent behind bars
for crimes they didn't commit.
But the problem is not simply
one of bigotry. The worst-kept secret in black America is that
there are many predators among black men. For every Lionel Tate,
a young man who thoughtlessly inflicted fatal injuries on a playmate,
there is a Michael Lewis, a.k.a. Little B, an out-of-control
thug who killed a man at 13.
In 1997, Darrell Woods and
his family stopped at a convenience store in a bottomed-out Atlanta
neighborhood called the Bluff. Michael Lewis, who was selling
drugs nearby, demanded that Mr. Woods turn out his headlights.
When Mr. Woods refused, Michael Lewis shot him dead as Mr. Woods'
two young sons sat in the back seat.
In 2002, the nation had 14,054
homicides, according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. Of those
in which a suspect was identified, black men were likely perpetrators
in more than 40 percent. That's a damning statistic for a group
that accounts for only about 6 percent of the population.
Black men are also the group
most vulnerable to violent crime. In 2002, they accounted for
nearly 40 percent of the nation's homicide victims. In other
words, black men pose the greatest threat to each other.
Not that you'd know that to
listen to the public debate, which is often a contentious argument
fueled by white racism and black defensiveness and denial. Many
whites are reluctant to admit that justice in America is not
color-blind, while blacks are loath to concede the problem of
violence in their midst.
A recent controversy over escalating
crime in Atlanta's most popular entertainment district, Buckhead
Village, bore witness to the racial divide. White callers to
talk-radio shows denounced blacks for "ruining" Buckhead,
while black politicians and activists dismissed concerns over
violent crime as a ruse, a cover for racist whites who wanted
to return to an era of segregated nightlife. Few pointed to a
salient fact: Of the nine homicides in Buckhead Village since
January 2000, all the victims and all the suspects are black.
If the nation is ever to have
a system of criminal justice that is actually just, it has to
stop confusing the Lionel Tates with the Little B's.
And if black America is to
solve its problem of violent crime, it needs to stop pretending
the Little B's don't exist.
Cynthia Tucker is editorial
page editor for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her column
appears Mondays in The Sun.
Copyright © 2003, The
Baltimore Sun
Huge protest vowed if
Tate retried
Tanya Wragg, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer, December 15,
2003
RIVIERA BEACH -- Activists
hoping to halt the criminal prosecution of children as adults
now vow to organize a large demonstration and "dream team"
of defense lawyers should 16-year-old Lionel Tate be retried
for murder.
An appellate court last week
ordered a new trial for Tate, who in 2001 became the youngest
person in Florida sentenced to life in prison without possibility
of parole.
The Broward County State Attorney's
Office must decide whether to appeal the ruling, retry the youth
or negotiate a deal that would free him.
A group headed by Bishop Thomas
Masters, of New Macedonia Baptist Church in Riviera Beach, is
pressing for Tate to be freed. Masters on Sunday called for the
"largest demonstration Broward has ever seen" should
he be retried.
"We'll be there by the
hundreds, by the thousands saying, 'Justice now,' " Masters
said. "That's not a threat. It's a promise."
A spokesman for the Broward
state attorney would not comment Sunday.
Lionel Tate was 12 years old
in 1999 when he was charged with first-degree murder in the death
of a 6-year-old playmate.
According to court testimony,
Tate was imitating wrestling moves at his mother's Pembroke Park
home when he fatally injured the girl.
Tate's mother turned down a
plea deal in which he would have received three years in prison.
His attorneys are seeking the same deal now.
"He isn't old enough to
vote, join the military or drink, so why should he be tried as
an adult?" Masters said Sunday during a combination church
service and news conference. "Regardless of the crime, regardless
of how gloomy the situation is, children must be treated like
children, rather than the adults they are not."
Richard Rosenbaum, Tate's appellate
attorney, said O.J. Simpson lawyer Johnnie Cochran, along with
a "dream team" of other unnamed high profile-lawyers,
will join forces to free Tate -- and try to ban state laws that
allow children to be tried as adults. Cochran was first consulted
on the case in 2001, shortly after Tate was sentenced to life.
Rosenbaum, who is representing
Tate for free, told some 100 people at Masters' church that Tate
was in shackles when they first met.
"He couldn't even scratch
his nose," Rosenbaum said.
He recalled how Tate played
tick-tack-toe with his attorneys during a trial and didn't "have
a clue his life was on the line."
He reported that Tate is in
the 11th grade now and has made three A's and three B's.
The 4th District Court of Appeal
ruled on Tate's case Wednesday, saying his mental capacity should
have been evaluated before his trial in Fort Lauderdale.
The judges said Tate could
not understand the legal process.
Masters also has been an advocate
for Nathaniel Brazill, the Lake Worth teen sentenced to 28 years
in prison for shooting to death teacher Barry Grunow in 2000.
It was Brazill's case that got Masters involved in helping juveniles
facing adult crimes in Florida courts. He helped create an organization,
Under Our Wings, to fight that system.
Appeal court grants Lionel
Tate a new trial
By NOAH
BIERMAN, Miami Herald, Dec. 10, 2003
An appeals court has granted
Lionel Tate, the youngest killer ever given a life sentence,
a new trial.
The Fourth District Court of
Appeal released its long-awaited opinion Wednesday morning.
''I feel like somebody took
a 200-pound weight off my head,'' said Jim Lewis, Tate's defense
attorney who has been criticized for rejecting a plea offer and
using a professional wrestling defense for the youngster. ``Hopefully,
now, he's going to get a break.''
Tate was 12 when he killed
his 6-year-old playmate, Tiffany Eunick, in 1999. The appeals
court said Tate's competency was not properly evaluated.
''The record reflects that
questions regarding Tate's competency were not lurking subtly
in the background, but were readily apparent, as his immaturity
and developmental delays were very much at the heart of the defense,''
Judge Barry Stone wrote on behalf of the three-judge panel. ``It
is also alleged that his I.Q. of 90 or 91 means that 75 percent
of children his age scored higher, and that he had significant
mental delays.''
Earlier this year, Tate's attorney
released prison report cards, showing the youth has been getting
As and Bs. But his attorney on appeal, Richard Rosenabum, has
argued repeatedly that Tate had to be incompetent to reject a
three-year probation offer and risk the life sentence he received.
Judges rejected Tate's other
appeals arguments, including his assertion that Florida's laws
putting youngsters in adult courts are unconstitutional. That
issue, coupled with the case of Palm Beach County killer Nathaniel
Brazill, helped raise international interest in Tate's case.
Numerous liberal social groups
filed briefs with the court on Tate's behalf. His mother was
granted an audience with Pope John Paul II earlier this year.
The court rejected Brazill's
appeal earlier this year and referred to that decision in rejecting
several arguments Tate made in his quest for a new trial. Nathaniel
Brazill, who at 13 killed his Lake Worth Middle School teacher,
is serving 28 years in prison.
© 2003 The Miami Herald
and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
