'Jena Six' Teen Mychal Bell Back in Jail

[Ghost in the Machine]

'Jena Six' Teen Mychal Bell Back in Jail
Published: 10/11/07, 11:25 PM EDT

JENA, La. (AP) - A teenager at the center of a civil rights controversy is back in jail after a judge sentenced him on charges that were pending before the attack that put him in the national spotlight, his attorney said Thursday.

Mychal Bell, who along with five other black teenagers had been accused of beating a white classmate, went to juvenile court Thursday expecting another routine hearing, said Carol Powell Lexing, one of Bell's attorneys.

Instead, after a six-hour hearing, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. sentenced him to 18 months on two counts of simple battery and two counts of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

He had been hit with those charges before the Dec. 4 attack on classmate Justin Barker.

"He's locked up again," Marcus Jones said of his 17-year-old son. "No bail has been set or nothing. He's a young man who's been thrown in jail again and again, and he just has to take it."

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[Joanne98]

1. That's BULL SHIT!!!!!

[Selatius]

2. President Johnson would've sent the Justice Dept. down to Jena if he were still around.

Of course, we don't have that kind of leader as far as civil rights go anymore.

[goclark]

3. Yes Johnson would have sent the Justice Dept. down there

But the Bush Mob is in control of this entire situation.

[mduffy31]

4. He violated the terms of his probation

Sorry he knew that he shouldn't have gotten involved.

[aikoaiko]

5. That Bell beats on fellow kids and should be adjudicated appropriately is a seperate, but overlappin

....issue from what appears to be systematic unequal prosecution of black and white youths. The answer is to adjudicate white youths as aggressively as black youths.