Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Sentence: Life in Prison

In my research, I come across numerous cases of hate violence from the physically violent to the emotionally traumatic. But I paid particular attention to this case from last year because of the sheer brutality of the attack. As prosecutor, Mike Trent, said, "this was torture." The perpetrator, who is one seriously screwed up kid, had, among other things, a history of violent behavior in particularly towards Latinos, fascination with Skinheads and neo-Nazis, fantasizes about necrophilia, and hears voices in his head. All of which provided the jury enough reason to sentence him to life in prison.

But what moved me, and it seems so rare in these cases, is how both mothers, both families, embraced and mourned together with the perpetrator's mother apologizing repeatedly for the actions of her son.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4344623.html

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