Rare Robbery Case Brings Cries of Racism.

[Wcross]

http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/wireStory?id=3872293

The Associated Press
By JULIANA BARBASSA Associated Press Writer
LAKEPORT, Calif. Nov 16, 2007 (AP)


Three young black men break into a white man's home in rural Northern California. The homeowner shoots two of them to death but it's the surviving black man who is charged with murder.
In a case that has brought cries of racism from civil rights groups, Renato Hughes Jr., 22, was charged by prosecutors in this overwhelmingly white county under a rarely invoked legal doctrine that could make him responsible for the bloodshed.
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Is it right to charge this man with murder for the deaths of his companions in this incident? Is he responsible? My feelings are that he is not responsible for the deaths and should not be charged. The two dead men are responsible for their own deaths in this case. The question is, why is the prosecutor invoking this rarely used law in this case?

On the other hand I feel that Mr.Brown from the NAACP is way off base with this statement. Is it possible they only fled why the rounds started flying?
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Brown and other NAACP officials are asking why the homeowner is walking free. Tests showed Edmonds had marijuana and prescription medication in his system the night of the shooting. Edmonds had a prescription for both the pot and the medication to treat depression. "This man had no business killing these boys," Brown said. "They were shot in the back. They had fled."
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I also really have to question this statement from Mr. Hughes' mother;
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Hughes' mother, San Francisco schoolteacher Judy Hughes, said she believes the group didn't intend to rob the family, just buy marijuana. She called the case against her son a "legal lynching."
"Only God knows what happened in that house," she said. "But this I know: My son did not murder his childhood friends."
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