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'Jena Six' Member Heads to Law School
In December 2006, 17-year-old Theodore “Theo” Shaw was just a few credits shy of graduating from high school in Jena, Louisiana, when he and five other black teenagers were arrested and charged with attempted murder in the beating of a white classmate. What followed was national outrage over the severity of the charges against the young men, who became known as the Jena Six.
The charges were ultimately reduced, with Shaw and four others pleading no contest to misdemeanor simple battery charges. The sixth teen, Mychal Bell, pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery in a separate plea deal.
Shaw spent eight months in jail before his bail was lowered and community donations enabled his release. It was during that time behind bars that he experienced the consequences of inadequate legal representation, specifically for a crime that to this day he maintains he was wrongfully accused of.
Now, at the age of 26, Shaw will become a member of another group—this one made up of five elite recipients of the Gates Public Service Law Scholarship at The University of Washington School of Law.
“Since I was 17, I knew what I wanted to do,” says Shaw, who will attend the law school this fall. Shaw cites a “conscious awakening” that led him down his new career path and made him realize his desire to advocate for effective counsel, especially for minorities and those who are financially strapped. He adds that as soon as he was released from jail, he began to assess what he needed to do in order to get into law school.
The incident that led to Shaw's arrest nine years ago involved the beating of a white teenager, Justin Barker. Barker was knocked unconscious and treated at a hospital, while six of his black classmates—Shaw, Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Jesse Ray Beard, Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis—stood accused of attempted murder.
The severity of the charges sparked a nationwide outcry over whether the ensuing punishment fit the crime. More than 10,000 people descended on Jena to protest the arrests in what was largely viewed as racially biased injustice in a predominantly white town of 3,000 people, where tensions at the local high school had been brewing for months.
Shaw says that during his first couple of weeks in jail, he looked at the law very differently than he does now. Back then, he thought his release would be inevitable once his side of the story was heard. But when that did not happen, and his public defender was routinely not around, he took up the effort to get his bail reduced from over $100,000 by filing his own motions.
*snip*
http://m.americanlawyer.com/module/alm/app/tal.do#!/article/1743074884
The charges were ultimately reduced, with Shaw and four others pleading no contest to misdemeanor simple battery charges. The sixth teen, Mychal Bell, pleaded guilty to a juvenile charge of second-degree battery in a separate plea deal.
Shaw spent eight months in jail before his bail was lowered and community donations enabled his release. It was during that time behind bars that he experienced the consequences of inadequate legal representation, specifically for a crime that to this day he maintains he was wrongfully accused of.
Now, at the age of 26, Shaw will become a member of another group—this one made up of five elite recipients of the Gates Public Service Law Scholarship at The University of Washington School of Law.
“Since I was 17, I knew what I wanted to do,” says Shaw, who will attend the law school this fall. Shaw cites a “conscious awakening” that led him down his new career path and made him realize his desire to advocate for effective counsel, especially for minorities and those who are financially strapped. He adds that as soon as he was released from jail, he began to assess what he needed to do in order to get into law school.
The incident that led to Shaw's arrest nine years ago involved the beating of a white teenager, Justin Barker. Barker was knocked unconscious and treated at a hospital, while six of his black classmates—Shaw, Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Jesse Ray Beard, Carwin Jones and Bryant Purvis—stood accused of attempted murder.
The severity of the charges sparked a nationwide outcry over whether the ensuing punishment fit the crime. More than 10,000 people descended on Jena to protest the arrests in what was largely viewed as racially biased injustice in a predominantly white town of 3,000 people, where tensions at the local high school had been brewing for months.
Shaw says that during his first couple of weeks in jail, he looked at the law very differently than he does now. Back then, he thought his release would be inevitable once his side of the story was heard. But when that did not happen, and his public defender was routinely not around, he took up the effort to get his bail reduced from over $100,000 by filing his own motions.
*snip*
http://m.americanlawyer.com/module/alm/app/tal.do#!/article/1743074884
I remember this case so well. This is very good news!
